The House of Potter Rebuilt
by DisobedienceWriter
Summary: A curious 11-year-old Harry begins acting on the strange and wonderful things he observes in the wizarding world. He might just turn out very differently, and the world with him.
1. Year One

**The House of Potter Rebuilt**

X-X-X

A/N: I had never listened to the audio book of a Harry Potter novel before, but the _Sorceror's Stone/Philosopher's Stone_ was a good experience on a long drive last fall. It also started this story gestating.

What if a curious 11-year-old Harry, newly freed from his relatives, began acting on the strange and wonderful things he noticed in the wizarding world? He might just turn out very differently, and the world with him.

X-X-X

 **Year One**

X-X-X

The train chugged along and the red-haired boy bragged about his chocolate frog cards. "I have about five hundred..." He grinned.

"Amazing," Harry said. And it was.

Why? Ron knew far more than Harry did about this new world he'd entered. Each of those cards contained some hints about this world. For Harry, who knew little of this new place he was going to, each card seemed like something he should know, must know.

He was trying to soak it in as quickly as he could. He was rather desperate to fit in, not that he would admit it.

So, five hundred of anything valuable seemed like a huge number to Harry, enough to be memorable and exotic. Five hundred things, witches or wizards or accomplishments, he had never known before today.

The boys moved on to other topics, including why one shouldn't eat Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Beans if they were brown, green, black, or really any color, but Harry continued to think about a collection of cards. Not as a collection of facts this time, but as cards purchased with bronze or silver.

Five hundred of them. How much would that cost?

Harry wasn't sure. He'd bought a number of different treats a few minutes earlier, but he hadn't asked the individual prices of things.

They weren't free, Harry supposed.

So, five hundred items which cost something. How had Ron gotten them? Ron had made several remarks, very unsubtle ones, about how poor his family was. His clothes he was ashamed of, the packed sandwiches he didn't want to eat, the handed-down pet he seemed to loathe, the wand that looked like it had been sold from Ollivander's shop some time in the distant past...

So Harry wasn't sure of what he was seeing and hearing. A poor family, there was nothing wrong with poor... Harry had thought he was poor, too. But buying five hundred chocolate frogs to eat so someone could collect the cards? Five hundred frogs rather than, well, anything else?

No. Maybe Ron found some of the cards. Maybe he'd received gifts. Or paid a little at a jumble sale (did wizards have jumble sales?) for a large already formed collection...

Fewer frog cards might have meant new robes or a wand that didn't appear in need of replacement. It might have meant a slightly more comfortable life for all of the brothers, and the sister, Ron had.

Five hundred cards... Ron had to be exaggerating. Right?

Harry kept turning that question over until the train deposited them in Hogsmeade. It was a puzzle.

Harry's curiosity and his sense of mischief, which had withered in close proximity to his extremely, ferociously normal aunt, uncle, and cousin, returned as a faint ember. All it took was one observation and one rather insignificant question, which he didn't yet dare to speak aloud. It was something he found some pleasure in batting around.

Great things often began inconspicuously.

X-X-X

Several days after classes commenced, Harry discovered the misery of Defense with Professor Quirrel. Harry had had trouble staying awake, couldn't recall one thing he'd learned from the professor's stuttered explanations, and found he could still smell garlic – maybe rotten garlic – every time he took a breath. The smell had seeped into his lungs and pores of his skin.

He returned with Ron and Dean to the common room. Seamus and Neville had lagged behind with some of the girls.

"I'll be in the shower," Dean said. "I'm going to scrub that garlic out. Maybe I'll drown my robes, too. It's on everything."

Harry flopped onto a couch. He thought about a shower, too, but his head was still aching.

"Why's he teaching, making us miserable? Quirrel's afraid of his own shadow," Ron said, echoing something others had said before.

"I guess we're learning from the book for Defense _and_ History," Harry said.

It was unfortunate, but nothing new. He'd had a poor teacher for maths in primary and had had to keep up by relying on his workbooks rather than the teacher's explanations. He could do it again.

"Huh?" Ron asked.

"Well, isn't he following along with the text he assigned?" Harry asked.

"I don't know what he said. I don't think he knows what he said. How do you compare the book to an hour of mumbles and stutters?"

Harry shrugged. He didn't know, either. Hadn't there been something about iguanas in the lecture? No. Maybe the man just liked holding an iguana. Harry's head was really misty, billowy like how he imagined a packet of candy floss might taste, if he were ever allowed some.

Harry pulled out his defense book and started paging through it. He had looked at it before, but he'd been so excited then and had had so many books. Now that he was focused on one for a desperate reason, he could take the time to be impressed by the book. This he could learn from far better than sitting in Professor Quirrel's torture room/garlic storage area.

"Did you know you can bewitch a person?" Harry asked.

"Well, yes," Ron said. "Dad told some stories about it in the last war."

"I didn't know one wizard could control what another one does. Horrible. But something happens to the eyes. They go cloudy or dull. I'd never have guessed. At least there's a way to tell..."

"It was horrible," Ron agreed, half asleep. He really could sleep anywhere, anytime, for any reason.

Harry dipped back into the book. It was fascinating. He wasn't much of a reader, never had the time or the quiet for it. But today he thought he might just read the whole book. The writing was rather dry, but the topics were so interesting. Hags! Dragons! Descriptions of spells that made your teeth fall out or your skin feel on fire. Potions that could change the appearance of anyone. You might have an enemy sneak up on you while looking like your father or your best mate and not even know.

It was terrifying, but Harry didn't stop. He needed to know soon. He felt so out of place right now, so ignorant.

He turned the page and turned another and lost track of the time.

Seamus had to wake Ron and rouse Harry from his reading so they wouldn't be late for supper. The light had changed in the common room and Harry hadn't even noticed.

"Thanks, Seamus." Harry was unhappy to put the book down. He doubted that his stuttering professor would even cover a tenth of this material. Harry knew it was here, though, and he vowed to himself he wasn't going to ignore it.

The curiosity in him strengthened that day in September.

After supper, Harry tried a few spells referenced in the chapters he'd read. They worked for him. They _worked_ for him, better than anything he'd tried yet in Transfiguration. Or his first attempts at making sense of the Charms text.

He could do this. He wanted to do it. He found a little well of confidence inside him and began to chip away at its hardened borders, enlarging the sections that were free and lively and mischievous.

Harry liked magic.

He found he was good at magic.

The teachers might be so-so, but he could learn it anyway. Because he wanted to.

He had learned something very important that day because of those events and that book. It would be some time before someone helped him put this learning into words he could use to explain what had happened. Still, this nameless lesson performed its magic inside Harry's mind.

He would eventually come to call it hope.

X-X-X

Three days later, after he finished his read-through of the Defense text, Harry tried to dive into his history book. It was like leaping head first onto a thick stone make of sleep and bafflement. He woke with his face attempting to peel letters from the page. Apparently Harry drooled in his sleep.

In short, for history, the professor and the text were both dreadful, at least as far as Harry could tell.

Some of what the history book was trying to explain was also covered in the _The Dark Forces_ , Harry remembered. Some of it, though not all.

He still should learn it. This history book was inadequate and the ghost-teacher couldn't even tell he was putting the class to sleep. So, how to learn about history?

The question lingered in Harry's mind. He began re-reading the Defense book, including all the stuff in the very back which he had skipped before. This time, he knew about the topics that had surprised him. He wasn't amazed about the fact dragons existed; he was amazed at the details. He was also reading for the bits of history that were tucked into the Quentin Trimble book, as he was beginning to think of it.

Ron looked despondent at how much Harry was reading. He'd prefer heading to lunch early or playing wizard chess or, really, anything other than reading.

Harry could be persistent when he needed, like when he'd kept Hedwig safe from his relatives for the month before he got on the Hogwarts Express. Or when he'd spent the prior summer mostly away from Privet Drive and Dudley and his followers, who were even stupider than he was.

So Harry's curiosity won this round against Ron's love of games and sloth.

Ron pulled a book from his battered bag. His copy of the Defense book.

Harry noticed that Ron's copy of the book was rather different from Harry's. It had a slightly larger dimension and more pages and the cover was a different color.

Harry looked between the two for a moment. There was a brief note in his that it was the fourth revised edition.

"Hey Ron, can I look at your Defense book?"

Ron nodded. "Careful, it's kinda battered."

Harry opened Ron's copy of _The Dark Forces_ and discovered it was the second revised edition. It included chapters and appendices that Harry's did not, including advanced topics no first year student would touch on. Inferi and necromantic constructs, dueling and magical combat, an introduction to identifying rituals, and chapters on dangerous plants and combat- or trap-related potions.

"Can we swap for the evening? Yours is a little different from mine."

To Ron, each book was just as evil as the next. But Harry didn't ask for a favor often. "Better you than me."

Harry plunged in. Ron cracked the book Harry had already finished, but didn't read much if anything.

Harry skimmed some sections and read anything that seemed new. He didn't have a perfect or even a great memory, but the topics were memorable. He returned Ron's copy and got his own back the next day.

That weekend, Harry ventured into the library and found Madam Pince. Hogwarts had a copy of all four editions of the Trimble book, though only because the author had once been Headmaster of the school. He had bequeathed the copyright to Hogwarts, therefore the royalties and the right to revise and update the book. None of the copies had cost Hogwarts anything. That was what Madam Pince had told Harry, even though he hadn't asked.

Harry would later learn that none of Hogwart's books cost Hogwarts anything. They had all been donations of one sort or other. Odd that, and cheap.

He checked out the first edition of the Trimble text and began making notes with a ferocity that would have impressed Hermione Granger, had she known. Harry didn't know her well, except for what she said in classes and what books she selected when they were both in the library at the same time. Harry didn't know many of his classmates well, yet.

Harry might have been considered a middling-to-poor student at the Muggle schools he'd attended, but once he latched onto something that caught his interest...well, for the first time, he was actually enjoying learning what there was to learn.

Some of it was horrifying, like the inferi or some of the curses used to torture and maim people, but it was still interesting. This is what the people in his new world had chosen to do or chosen to fight against.

There were notes to take and spells to learn. There was magic that seemed useful, very useful.

Harry dreamed of what he might be able to do with some of it.

He sat in the library and read. Sometimes Ron was there. Sometimes others, including that lonely girl Hermione. Harry smiled at her and chatted sometimes. She was rather loud, or fierce, or persistent, for Harry's taste when she asked questions. But nice and desperate to help. Harry understood all too well.

X-X-X

As they neared the end of October, Harry had a better sense of what was happening in his new school. How? He started paying attention not just to his classes, but to how they compared with their assigned books.

Harry found that Professor Flitwick stuck the closest to the Standard Book of Spells, but he only covered forty percent of the spells in class for the chapters they'd touched on. The others they were expected to pick up on their own, a fact the Professor had not announced.

Professor McGonagall covered one example of each sub-type of transfiguration. Say match to needle. But there were many other exercises in the transfiguration text that Harry knew he needed to try. This book was supposed to last for five years, according to the things older students mentioned in the Gryffindor common room.

Snape seemed to skip around their text, but it took Harry a while to determine that. He wished the Professor would announce what their next class would be on. Harry would like to read what the text book actually said – and have more than a recipe chalked onto the board. All of the recipes Snape had given them so far were slightly different from the ones in the text, for some reason.

He wondered if they were more or less effective, not that he would ask the old grump.

What did it mean? No one was saying.

Harry decided he was responsible for what was said in class and in the book, no matter what the homework was about. He didn't see many others following the same principle, but it seemed correct to him.

The teachers seemed to be attempting to stoke interest in them, not enforce it or require it or even suggest it. Well, Snape appeared to be attempting to drown interest, but that was unlikely to be his real job. Perhaps his unpaid favorite hobby?

Harry wished all of the subjects clicked for him. But he had a way into studying them all. Defense touched on every other form of magic, perhaps excepting astronomy and divination. If Harry could keep himself interested in the one type of magic, he could find ways to learn all of them.

X-X-X

On Halloween, every simple thing fell apart. All the goodwill in Gryffindor among the first years evaporated and it was Ron Weasley's fault.

Ron had a temper, a vicious one. Harry wasn't quite sure why it exploded that day, he couldn't get that part of the story. He'd laid into Hermione Granger for being clever and helpful, Parvati had been insulted for – well, Harry wasn't quite sure what Ron had meant. It hadn't sounded pleasant. Then he'd had scathing things to say about, and to, some Slytherins.

Which all reinforced what Harry knew about himself: Harry disliked people with tempers.

Ron found himself knocked to the ground and soaked in ink. And he hadn't even seen Peeves anywhere.

Harry went around apologizing to unhappy girls, even the Slytherins. (Harry didn't apologize to Malfoy on Ron's behalf. The big mouth could do that on his own if he ever wised up.)

Hermione only accepted Harry's apology because Ron had been cruel to so many people.

"It was just his time of the month," she said.

"What?" Harry asked.

"Nothing, Harry. Nothing." She had very pink cheeks.

Harry shrugged and went about his day. Hermione and probably some of the others got their revenges on Ron. Perhaps he'd learn some manners, perhaps not. Maybe that was the point of Hogwarts: letting people stumble into trouble and see if they could stumble out again before they lost fingers or an ankle or their sanity.

The first-year Gryffindors all attended the Halloween feast together – and they were all evacuated back to Gryffindor Tower when a troll got loose. Trolls?

That, too, had to be Ron Weasley's fault, Harry decided. The angry boy had jinxed all of them with his cursed mouth. Harry was sure of that.

X-X-X

The students in Gryffindor were locked in their common room, so Harry pulled out the first edition Trimble which he had checked out for a second time. He hadn't wanted to miss anything. Harry tried to find a corner that had some light. The common room really was too small for all the students in Gryffindor, at least when they were all locked in together.

He started by investigating what Trimble had to write about trolls, of course, but soon got less interested. They were rather easy to distract, so most troll keepers used illusions on them. Harry hadn't found much instruction on that kind of magic yet. It must be fairly advanced.

He paged through the first edition Trimble and found material at the back he wasn't expecting. He must have skipped it on his first read-through. It was only two pages long, but what pages they were.

 _Appendix AD: The Explorer's Best Friends and Enemies_

 _One who travels the dark places of the world will realize that most spells are useless in a desperate moment. One can know dozens of spells and still fall into peril. However, one need not possess warlock-level strength to remain safe while exploring. In fact, I have taught these precautions to young people who have not yet completed their schooling at Hogwarts. These are particularly simple spells to learn, effective for novices. They are also spells that gain effectiveness the more familiar one becomes with them. So they start out as fairly useful and become much better with repetition. (For reasons I cannot explain, they have also become very uncommon to find in any ordinary curriculum. As an aside, politics is a game no one should enjoy playing because it is a game where all parties agree to lose.)_

 _ **Ignis Solis, Sunfire.**_

 _Most beasts and dangers in the world will succumb to fire if it is sufficiently hot and durable. This particular spell, spoken with the wand's flick toward the intended target, creates a small, single, hot projectile of fire. More comfort with the spell will produce hotter projectiles with a longer burn duration, though this spell will not produce larger projectiles. It is a precision spell, all the better because fire isn't something to splash in every direction._

 _ **Aquamenti Globus, Mind's Water Globe.**_

 _Note: Learn this before practicing the Sunfire spell to counter any problematic fires._

 _The Water Globe is cast by speaking the spell and holding the wand steadily in the desired direction. The force with which the spell is cast will influence how far and fast the globe of water travels, which makes it a rather unique spell. Variable speeds and variable forces can be quite useful against unwary opponents, whether creature or wizard._

 _The Water Globe is useful against several water-fearing creatures and a forceful casting can batter at other creatures or obstacles. It is also a superior spell for refilling canteens or bathing. I suggest combining this spell with the Lightning-Bearer in times of extreme danger as a wet creature may feel the effects of lightning far more deeply._

 _ **Fulmenifer, Lightning-Bearer.**_

 _Note: Do not practice this spell in the presence of water, particularly water you may be standing in. This includes wet or rain-soaked clothing._

 _What doesn't succumb to flame will almost certainly succumb to electricity or lightning, even dragons and other flame-proof creatures. This spell, by speaking its name and jabbing the wand at the intended target, produces a small bolt suitable for handling individual creatures or small groups. In dire straights, aim for the eyes. (When cast by an expert? Larger bolts, multiple bolts, continuous bolts, all have been observed. The sky is the limit.)_

 _A bonus suggestion for the traveler or explorer._

 _Learn a multipurpose cutting spell. You can clear dense vegetative growth or attack dangers with it. Food preparation is also a benefit. There are a minimum of thirty spells of this type, though none are truly meant for novices to succeed with them. Select one you can cast with some degree of force and practice it until it is combat-useful._

 _Less useful options?_

 _Most adventurers recommend preparing options like stunners or petrifying spells. They require a considerable degree of practice before being at all useful. In addition, most significant dangers to an adventurer are resistant to stunning, including trolls, dragons, nundu, and nearly all magical serpents. Finally, if your danger is another wizard, stunners are of little use against someone who has practiced shielding spells, wears certain enchantments, or possesses significantly greater magical potential. Skilled wizards or witches are also capable of dodging spells, redirecting them, or intercepting them with solid objects._

 _Freezing spells are often suggested to work in combination with water spells. It produces a pleasing visual effect in a covered, indoor environment, plus slipperiness. Outdoors, in a hot environment, you may exhaust your magical reserves trying to freeze any significant amount of water. Be wary._

 _Blasting spells are dangerous to their own caster in many circumstances, particularly when underground, such as in tunnels. Cave-ins have killed many an explorer. Used in dense vegetative growth, they may also bring down trees in unpredictable directions. Finally, blasting spells that hit solid materials, such as stone or metal, may create flying shards that fly in many directions, including backward. Opt for more precise spells when possible._

 _Piercing spells are supposed to provide precision, but they often lack power, except in the case of spells that have been truly mastered. I recommend developing other resources before attempting to perfect piercing spells. Also, many armored creatures are highly resistant to spells in this class. Never attempt a piercing spell on a dragon or basilisk, except against the eyes or the soft palate. Do ask yourself this question: Do you really wish to get that close to try piercing the eyes of a basilisk?_

 _Illusion spells are one class of spell that are no longer commonly taught, which is a shame. They are incredibly versatile. They also require years of work to make them useful, which might explain why they have largely been abandoned. Young adventurers should develop the fire-water-lightning combination, along with a cutter. Once those are mastered, one_ _might_ _consider developing illusion spells. By then, however, a young adventurer is more likely to be an old adventurer._

 _Note: Some creatures are unaffected by illusions, or at least some illusions. One would have to have a truly astounding collection of illusions to be truly safe using them while exploring. Wizards who have developed skills in the mind magics may also be resistant to illusions._

Yes, these were the clearest and most useful two pages Harry had yet read in a book. He wanted to leave the common room right now to practice these three new spells.

He also wanted to research cutters. He hadn't come across any in the Trimble book, any edition. Nor could he remember one from his charms book, though he only had the first volume.

Harry thought about trolls. If he took this advice from this book, what could he do if he came across a troll...

Fire? No, they had thick, tough skins. The flame would have to be blistering to do much.

He leaned toward water and electricity. That'd knock it out, surely. Assuming Harry was any good with the spells.

The other sections of the book didn't mention exactly how to handle a troll. A shame. They talked about the dimensions of the animal and how to avoid them. Well, avoiding a troll which was walking around the hallways of a school might not be that easy.

Still, he wanted to know. Harry would keep his ears open and perhaps he'd hear how the professors handled this one.

X-X-X

It was no easy thing to pick through the gossip and find the nibble of truth. Harry spent a week listening and prodding the other students for real information. The jerks kept telling increasingly ridiculous stories. The troll had been turned into salt or a mound of stinky cheese. It had been levitated and hauled out of the castle. It had been chopped up for Trollbane Potion which they would start preparing in Potions class. It had been reverse transfigured into Professor Snape who had forgotten to take his Trollbane Potion and so had transformed one evening.

Harry did like that last one, as impossible as it was.

Harry finally waited until Charms class concluded. He asked Professor Flitwick how the troll had been handled.

Harry was expecting a fight of some type. Maybe even a lightning spell. But not a stunner or a cutting charm. Transfiguration?

"Ahh, yes. The stories have gotten out of hand. Professor Dumbledore used a sleep charm."

Harry blinked a few times. His brain was inclined to reject what the Professor had just said. "He put it to sleep?"

That didn't seem possible. A troll...just falling asleep.

"There are charms that will do that for wizards, but they don't work on creatures like trolls. The one Albus used only worked on trolls. I admit I'd never heard of it before. After all, I never joined the Troll Dueling League."

"A sleeping charm just for trolls?"

"I was also disbelieving at first, Mr. Potter. The spell was something that Professor Dumbledore learned from an obscure book."

"Thank you, Professor," Harry said. He was more than a little disappointed and fairly confused.

"I'm glad you asked, Mr. Potter. You are the first. Better to have the real stories, though I did like the one about Severus scaring the troll to death with one of his glares. Though, the one about some unnamed student levitating the troll's own club to knock it out... That was a step too far."

Harry tried to smile before he walked away. Professor Flitwick invariably said something very funny or smart when Harry asked him a question.

He was a man who had seen much. He was a man who cared. Perhaps he was also too busy to do anything unless someone asked him a question. But he cared.

Ron was arguing with Hermione. They had both waited for Harry to ask his question. The argument didn't sound heated. Harry was just glad Ron could be passionate about something, even the silly question he was quibbling over. Harry wasn't listening as they all walked back to the common room.

Harry was thinking about the professor's answer: a sleep spell tailored to trolls. He couldn't get excited about it.

In fact, Harry came down on the opposite side. He decided such a specific spell was rather useless. It was good that Professor Dumbledore knew it when confronted by a troll, but useless. How many times had the man run into a troll? How many times had he had a chance to practice it and refine it? What if it hadn't worked when he needed it decades after learning it?

That afternoon Harry excused himself from his friends in Gryffindor and went walking outside. He needed to practice. He could cast Sunfire against the bark of very old trees. The projectile was really small, but ever so hot.

The water globe was harder so he hadn't done it successfully yet, aside from some water starting to ball up. As for the third spell, Harry preferred not to be outside before trying to create lightning. It was awfully moist in the places he found to work. That was a major draw back to this spell, Harry decided. Maybe with practice it would be useful in more places.

Maybe.

He needed somewhere he could work indoors. He was going to have to find a room no one else was using, something far away from the usual corridors.

X-X-X

Yule break had arrived. Harry had stayed at Hogwarts and so had all four Weasleys and a few others.

A strange owl wearing a tag from Diagon Alley Owl Delivery interrupted Harry's conversation with Hedwig, which he had every morning at breakfast. The owl brought Harry a Christmas gift from Hermione, along with a note.

She had become a fine friend since that day Ron had been so horrible to her. Harry had become a little less Ron's friend, too, over it. Jerks weren't his favorites.

The note said, "Dear Harry, Happy Christmas. I wanted to get you something you'd appreciate. One of the used bookstores in Diagon Alley had a couple copies of the first edition Trimble book. I got one for myself, too. Your friend, Hermione."

What a gift. Harry ripped open the wrapping paper. The book was in good shape, but it had some years on it. Harry would treasure it. It was the first book Harry had intended to put into his collection. (He didn't think of his schoolbooks off a booklist as items he'd chosen.)

He needed to find a better gift for Hermione. He'd sent her some chocolate frogs, as he'd done for Ron and a few others. Some Ravenclaws had had them on offer, smart ones who'd stocked up in the summer knowing that folks would want some during the school term.

Now Harry needed to find something better. A book, of course, that he could find two copies of, one for him and one for her.

That meant Harry needed to dig around in the library again. He had mined what he could from the different editions of Trimble. He still needed to practice and keep current with his fire – water – lightning, but he was making progress. He might wait until next year to read it again. Perhaps he'd see more after sitting on it for a while.

Harry fed the delivery owl then collected Hedwig and walked back to Gryffindor Tower. He wanted to show Hedwig his other gifts. He'd gotten a sweater and sweets from Ron and the twin's mother. Letters from people Harry didn't know wishing him greetings. A cloak that made his body appear invisible. That was great fun and even Hedwig seemed to like it.

Harry had already begun thinking about how to use it to his advantage, though no one in the school knew about it. Sneaking out at night with it? Getting it pinched by someone like Filch or Snape – no.

Eventually Hedwig ruffled her feathers. She was ready to leave. Harry opened a window and Harry's good friend flew out.

Harry closed the window and walked down to the common room. Ron was sprawled on in front of the fire. How could he stand it? It was blistering in here.

"Ron, let's do something," Harry said.

"I'm napping. I had a big breakfast."

"Nap later. Let's go explore."

"Explore later," Ron said, sounding like he'd ingested a hillock of sausages and neither Ron nor the sausages had yet managed to conquer the opposing side of the battle.

Harry was whining and he didn't like that, so he stopped. Ron really had eaten a big breakfast. Fine.

"I'll be back later."

Harry's friend really didn't care about new things or adventures or exciting stories written down in books. Oh, well. Harry would take what he could – and seek out whatever was missing.

Today he decided to look into the fifth floor. Part of the third was off limits and he'd looked into other parts, aside from the upper and lower dungeons. Hmm, the dungeons. Maybe tomorrow?

The trouble with exploring was sometimes you met up with someone or something else that was also exploring. Harry felt something hit him, then something else. He looked at the floor. He had been hit three, no four, times with wire rubbish bins.

"Peeves..."

And there the poltergeist was, grinning and laughing, loaded up with another three or four bins. How did he get hold of so many?

"Potty, Potty, got a knotty, knotty on your skull!"

Harry had and didn't appreciate it. He didn't know anything about poltergeists. For some reason neither they nor ghosts had been mentioned in any detail in any of the Trimble books. Perhaps the late Headmaster Trimble hadn't thought ghosts should be attacked?

So Harry had to guess... Fire? No. Water? No. That cutter, Diviso, he'd been working on? No.

"Fulmenifer." Harry jabbed his wand.

The lightning was a pitiful bolt, but it hit true. Harry had to wait for the flash of light to stop adding spots to his vision. He blinked a lot. This was another drawback to the lightning-bearer.

However, it worked. Peeves was now a bunch of muck splattered on a wall, like an ooze.

"Potty, Potty, my new best friend. You bring the best Yule gifts..." A much dimmer-seeming poltergeist floated out of the wall, through the ooze that had once been part of his...being. He was laughing, but his voice was thicker... In pain?

Harry was going to have to make a note in his book. The lightning-bearer could hurt a poltergeist.

"Truce," Harry said.

"What is a truce?"

"You leave me alone and I'll leave you alone."

Peeves looked horrified. "Never. Zappy-zappy is my favorite friend, Potty-Potty."

The dimmed poltergeist flew through a door and disappeared.

What a strange entity. Harry had almost killed it and it pretended to like lightning just to be contrary. Like Harry's aunt pretending to like chocolate biscuits just because Mrs. Wangle in Number Eleven Privet Drive liked to serve them. Petunia Dursley was actually allergic to chocolate which might explain why she was so sour.

Harry opened the door that Peeves had flown through and looked inside. It wasn't a classroom. It wasn't much of anything but empty space. There were more doors off the room, though. Harry found three smaller rooms attached, one a water closet.

An idea began to form in his head.

The dust here suggested this set of rooms wasn't used often. It had a restroom. One of the small rooms could be a bedroom maybe. Harry was no stranger to doing without a shower, but if he got a bucket he could still wash himself. That would give him someplace to hide out for the summer. No more Dursleys.

Harry spent the next hour looking through the rest of the floor. It really was disused, this whole section.

He returned every remaining day of the holiday break.

By the time the Hogwarts Express returned the students to the school, Harry had begun to fill his little area with things of value. A chair that he had mended with a reparo, a cot he'd found in a closet (and why had there been a cot in a closet?), boxes that would work in place of drawers and shelves.

Harry greeted Seamus, Dean, and Neville when they stumbled into the common room. Ron was napping again. He said hello to Hermione and a few of the other girls.

They all disappeared to their rooms. Neville took a seat in front of the fire. The shy boy who rarely spoke was smiling that day so Harry spent more time trying to become his friend.

It was rare, and pleasant, to see Neville so happy.

"How were your holidays, Neville?" Harry asked.

The happiness waned. "Good."

The boy couldn't lie. Harry could, of course, and he could tell when others were. Lots of odd skills that the Dursley family were useful for honing.

"But you're grateful to be back?"

That smile returned as bright as the sun. "Oh, yes."

Neville was another who thought better of Hogwarts than his own home. Harry, at least, wasn't alone in that. Sadly enough.

Harry's friend had grown up knowing magical things, though.

"I had a question," Harry said.

"Oh?"

"About lightning, electricity..."

"Err, I don't know much about it. Sorry." Downtrodden Neville was a sad thing to hear or see.

"No worries, mate. I was just wondering if lightning had an effect on ghosts..."

"Ghosts?"

"Well, yes." He wasn't going to admit zapping Peeves – or how much Peeves seemed to enjoy it. Peeves had sought Harry out twice before the holiday ended and pestered Harry to point where Peeves got himself zapped. It was getting irritating.

"Well, Gran did give me some books for New Year's. Maybe... Yes, there was one volume she insisted I read first. On things an Auror had to know..."

"And what's an Auror?"

"They put evil wizards in prison."

Police, Harry thought. Magical police.

"What did your book say?"

"Yes. Right. Well, it mentioned negotiating with ghosts for information. It said that ghosts did like certain things and would sometimes trade information for a gift. Strong smells, like rotten food. The sound of wailing. And lightning, especially lightning storms. Didn't say why."

"I wonder if that's why there's no electricity here. Don't want ghosts zapping themselves all the time?"

The idea made Harry smile. Ghosts as addicts to electricity...

"I could ask..."

Neville was so desperate to help. Like Harry had been, like Hermione still was.

"Just curiosity, mate. Let's get to the Spring Term Feast, shall we?"

"Can I dump my things first? I'm warmer now."

"I'll wait," Harry said.

X-X-X

That night after the feast, Ron remembered to thank Harry for the chocolate frogs. He must have heard others extending their thanks for various gifts during the feast.

"You're welcome, Ron. Did you get the cards you were looking for?" Harry asked.

"Not yet, soon though." Hope sprang eternal in him.

"You said you had a lot."

"I do."

"How did you get so many? Your family really like chocolate?"

"What? No. Not that much. The frogs are..." He shrugged. Not his favorite was how Harry interpreted it. "The cards, though, are wizard. I bought some with pocket money, sometimes I'd help with chores or help the Diggorys. Not the Lovegoods, though. They never had chores, for some reason. Lawn was so overgrown that cutting it down wouldn't have made a difference..."

"You said you had five hundred. You bought them all with pocket money?"

"No. We hand them down, don't we? Got some from my uncles on my dad's side, got Dad's and Bill's. Charlie refused to share what he had. Percy...well, I don't know if he collected anything other than books of rules. Never asked the twins, safer that way."

"So the cards have been around a long time?" Harry asked.

"Oh, they change sometimes, but Paracelsus and Hengist aren't going anywhere. They've been dead for ages."

"So the Dumbledore card has always said what it did?" Harry struggled to think of any other current wizards who might have cards. He just didn't know. History certainly didn't talk about anyone who was still alive.

"Don't know. I guess so."

That answered that. Ron probably did have five hundred cards, but they were family heirlooms. Maybe like Harry's cloak. That had belonged to Harry's father, at least the note had said so.

Harry didn't say what he'd thought of Ron's collection before. He still wondered if a few fewer chocolate frogs would have meant his friend was a bit happier about his life? But how did one phrase that without getting into a row the height and heft of Gryffindor Tower?

Harry took the prompt about gifts and sought out Hermione to thank her for the wonderful book she'd found him.

"I'm glad you liked it." She was almost tongue-tied. Perhaps she wasn't much used to receiving gratitude?

"Have you read it?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes. It was very helpful, but I don't especially like Defense."

"Well, I don't like the class, but I do like some of the books I've found. They're brilliant."

"Have you read..." Hermione was willing to talk to anyone who was willing to talk books.

X-X-X

Harry spent considerable time in the library looking for things to enjoy or learn, but the collection had strange gaps. For one, tales of wizarding explorers and adventurers were in short supply. Harry didn't like the Lockhart books much, but he found volumes about the wizards who had explored the Nile Valley during Roman times, the people who had excavated Celtic burial mounds, and the daft wizards who first explored the New World and forgot about what they'd found. None of the books talked much about the spells they used, but the stories were good, if dry.

Harry also found Hagrid in the library reading about dragons. Eventually Harry broke down Hagrid's babble-mouthed protestations. The large wizard was hatching an egg, a dragon egg.

So Harry began to split some of his free time: some went to Ron or Neville or the others, some went to Hermione who was looking into various magics referenced in the library but not taught in the school, some went to Harry's own projects, including mastering a few spells...and now some went to nurse-maiding a dragon egg inside an extremely hot, stuffy wooden hut.

Harry couldn't talk Hagrid from the name Norbert, but he did manage to get Hagrid to hide the dragon in the forest after the hatching. By the time spring was in full bloom, the dragon could fend for itself. It seemed to prefer dining on spiders, massive ones. Hagrid wasn't well-pleased with that, but he liked dragons better than spiders so he just grumbled about Norbert's dietary choices.

Harry visited Norbert several times a week. The dragon, which turned out not to be a male dragon, was larger than Harry, but she regarded Harry with some fondness. As if Harry were a rather malformed younger dragon.

That day Harry arrived to find the dragon with her head on the leafy ground, but she wasn't sleeping.

"I suppose you're lonely," Harry said.

The dragon seemed to understand. She nodded.

"I've read about preserves for dragons. You'd have people to take care of you. You'd have other dragons to chat with."

There was a noise on the wind that sounded like _where_.

Was the dragon talking to Harry?

"Let me look that up. I know there's one close enough. The bigger ones are in Romania, I think, and the Ukraine. They're pretty far away."

Harry returned the next day with two books and a map. He felt a little silly chatting away to Norbert. Although the wind had informed Harry that Norbert's real name was Bobminth. A strange name that.

A week later, Hagrid was despondent. Norbert was gone, flown away.

Harry wondered if he'd told Bobminth exactly where to go. He made a point not to mention his conversations with Norbert or his work with maps. Hagrid might not believe Harry, which would be bad, or Hagrid might believe Harry and be furious, which would be worse.

X-X-X

Harry held out the letter and Hedwig hooted her agreement. Harry tied the letter to her leg and thanked her. She was off, on the wing toward Diagon Alley.

Harry's digging in the library had finally discovered what he should purchase for Hermione. She was much enthused of the current Hogwarts: A History, which Harry had paged through. However, the library had a few earlier editions. The ninth edition, rather than the twenty-first, was fascinating. There were spells mentioned in it. There were lessons from history. There were explanations of how the school ran back then. It was a more brutal place where they did use chains on misbehaving wizards and more than one naughty person was transfigured into a rabbit for a day or three.

Harry had written a letter to a used book store he'd heard about in the common room. It wasn't the one that Hermione had found, this one was bigger. Harry wanted two copies of the ninth edition Hogwarts: A History, which would become the second book Harry would shelve in his personal library. There were things mentioned in there that conflicted with the recent version, there were things in there that Harry hadn't seen mentioned anywhere else. That meant it was a book he ought to own. He had asked in his letter for the price for two copies.

He had plenty of money in his coin purse and nothing to spend it on. Not yet, at least.

The summer might be different. Harry left the owlery and returned to the castle. He had finally worked out the last of the details for his summer. He wasn't going 'home' to Little Whinging for the summer break. No. He was going to camp out in the rooms he'd found.

He wasn't going to ask nicely first. He decided there was no point in asking permission. He would just do what he needed to do, which was to stay in the magical world.

He was going to look into something the ninth edition mentioned, too. It might take care of his food worries.

When he got back into the castle he went walking down corridors he'd never used before. There. It looked like a still-life painting. Tickling a pear, wasn't it?

The framed painting opened.

The house elves in the kitchen were more than happy to chat with Harry. When he brought up his question of acquiring food for the summer, he learned that they were also happy to supply him with what he needed daily.

That seemed too easy so Harry probed.

From what he could make out, more than one clever student who couldn't return home for the summer had made a spot for themselves in Hogwarts. While the ones who asked were refused, the ones who just did as they needed made sure not to be found.

"Why?" Harry asked.

There was a lot of parsing to do, but the answer was that the house elves preferred a full castle to an empty one. Even if the person staying wasn't technically supposed to be there. They had lots of stories of people who'd hidden out in Hogwarts over the last decades. Criminals in the dungeons, rat-men in the Gryffindor Tower, infants in conjured cribs who the house elves cooed over in varied abandoned rooms before they were smuggled out and away on a long weekend. So long as they hurt no one, visitors were welcomed by the house elves.

That was a relief. Harry would have to be careful not to be seen or heard, but the few teachers and staff staying on for the summer wouldn't expect someone to be in the school. Plus he had an invisibility cloak.

The house elves knew differently. Harry was the third planning to remain this year. They wouldn't tell. They wished the number was higher. Maybe two or three more might decide to also remain. The castle would still be mostly empty.

X-X-X

One week before classes ended, Quirrel had a red stone in his hand as he moved through the halls. Harry had the misfortune to leave a few moments late from the library so he could snag lunch in the Great Hall.

"Harry. Potter," Quirrel said with an otherworldly voice.

Harry turned and noted the red stone...and the red splashed on the man's clothes. Quirrel looked rather spell-worn, like he'd been attacked.

"Professor?"

"Avada Kedavra."

Harry knew those words. He dropped to the floor hoping to dodge the spell aimed at him, but the green hit his face. He slumped to the floor, unmoving.

There was a keening wail in the hallway. It wasn't Harry's voice. It was Quirrel's.

For he had done as he desired, but the cost had been too high.

Harry woke up from his uncomfortable spot on the floor. The green hadn't killed him, for a second time.

He saw that Quirrel was still close by, kneeling on the floor as two voices wailed over a number of red shards that decorated the flagstones.

That red stone he'd been holding had shattered somehow.

Harry didn't care. His teacher had just tried to murder him. Harry felt anger at Quirrel, then he felt anger at himself for being unprepared. Danger wasn't just confined to the outside when an adventurer was wandering. It could be anywhere.

This was a lesson Harry knew and had thought he was prepared for.

Harry pulled his wand from his robe pocket.

"Aquamenti Globus." He'd said it quietly, but he had practiced up the spell. Quirrel flew against the wall from the force of the water globe.

"Fulmenifer."

The lightning struck true. The professor was smoking, though one of his voices was still wailing and screaming. How? His mouth wasn't moving.

The red shards on the stone floor had dissolved in the water. They were little more than errant flashes of red light now.

Harry got up, slowed his breathing, and resumed his walk to the Great Hall. He managed to finish most of his lunch before someone burst into the room to proclaim that Professor Quirrel was dead.

No one seemed to mourn him, least of all the boy he'd attacked.

It wasn't until that evening that Harry looked into a mirror and discovered that his scar, the one that he had quite liked as a young child, was completely gone.

He didn't understand that at all. He also couldn't mention it to anyone.

X-X-X

An old man found Harry when he was walking outside the next day. He introduced himself as Nicholas Flamel. Harry hadn't heard the name before.

They continued walking in silence for a time. Harry found all of this very strange.

All of a sudden, Flamel said he would be filling in for a time at Hogwarts.

"For who, sir?"

"Professor Dumbledore was attacked and killed yesterday..."

Harry began to shake his head. No, Quirrel had been killed...

"Albus's body was found early this morning."

Harry tried to summon up some emotion, but found that Dumbledore had been so remote in Harry's day-to-day life he really had no thoughts or feelings for the man.

"Yesterday was a dark day," Flamel said.

"Yes, sir."

"A teacher murdered the Headmaster. No duel, just an ambush. Blood everywhere. An old master taken down through treachery. He felt too secure in this castle..."

The man looked back at Hogwarts.

"And particularly dark for you."

"Sir?"

"Attacked by a teacher who had just murdered, attacked with a Killing Curse..."

Harry hadn't reported anything, but this man knew.

"Tell me, Mr. Potter, tell me what happened. What did you see?"

So Harry told. What little he had seen before he was cursed. What little he saw before he responded.

Flamel was interested in that red stone and in those fragments that had appeared on the floor.

"The Killing Curse?"

"Yes, sir."

"You've survived it twice."

"Yes, sir.

"That's it, then. The Elixir of Life cannot tolerate death. The Philosopher's Stone broke with the casting of that vile spell. I'm surprised it let that possessed fool hold it at all."

Elixir of Life? The hairs on his arms and the back of his neck were defying gravity at the moment. What was this feeling? He didn't understand any of it. Fear? Awe? Gratitude for a touch of good luck? It wasn't hope. Harry had felt that plenty of times this year.

He had only one question left right now, though surely others would occur to him in the future. He was still trying not to think of that green spell or those two words used to create it.

"Am I in trouble?" Harry asked.

He had, after all, murdered a teacher and kept silent about it. He'd been in trouble at the Dursley house for burning bacon. What kind of punishment would they have for a murderer?

"In trouble for killing the man who killed Dumbledore? No, I think not, Mr. Potter. I'd say you would become even more famous for that feat, should you wish to claim credit for it."

"I don't."

"Well, you're smarter than Albus ever was. I understand you're planning to remain in the castle over the summer. Made plans, you have."

Harry said nothing.

"In any event, I approve. Do try to keep out of sight. Perhaps a hat or a temporary aging potion if you have to walk around? The castle will be filled with busy bodies, people in fancy robes who believe they understand magic because some fool gave them a fancy job title at the Ministry. I will be able to keep you safe this summer, but they'll want their own man in place soon enough. Sad as it is. Albus was a brilliant wizard though a shocking failure as a schoolmaster, so I can't help but assume that any dimwitted hack sent here will be far worse for the school."

"Sir?"

"I have enough strength to resist them until they're old enough for their death beds, though that is a rather obvious use of my strength. I prefer more subtle means."

Whatever that meant. "Yes, Professor," Harry said.

"Ahh, Perenelle would say I'm babbling. And she'd be right, for my wife is a very clever witch. Enjoy your summer, Mr. Potter."

"Thank you." He meant it in several forms, thank you for relieving his mind, thank you for allowing him to remain. Thank you for chatting and volunteering information.

It was more than anyone else had done, any staff member at least. If Harry had wanted to know something, he had had to buck up the courage and find a way to ask.

"We shall chat again in September," Professor Flamel said.

X-X-X

On the day that the Hogwarts Express was to take everyone back to King's Cross Station, London, Harry gave Hermione a book just before she left to get on the train.

"I've read Hogwarts: A History," she said, although she automatically opened it and began turning pages.

"This one is an old edition. It's quite different. I learned a lot from it," Harry said.

"Where did you find it?" she asked.

"Well, the library has a copy and I liked it. So I wrote to three different used book stores to find this copy for you. To thank you for your Christmas gift. It really was the nicest thing I've ever gotten."

She grinned at him, so pleased. "Thank you, Harry. Thank you."

Whether she meant for the gift or the compliment, she didn't say. She was very happy as she got into a carriage and began reading. Harry had walked outside with her, but was strangely without any of his belongings. Hermione didn't notice or comment.

She never did find him on the Hogwarts Express, though that could be because she was busy reading her new, and very different, book.

Hogwarts wasn't quite the place she believed it to be. Nor the recent editors of Hogwarts: A History. So much history had been stripped from the book over the ages.

X-X-X

A/N: I estimate three more full chapters and an epilogue. The next chapter should be up in a week.


	2. Year Two

X-X-X

Year Two

X-X-X

A/N: I had questions about Quirrel/Riddle managing to kill Dumbledore. I imagine that Dumbledore was rushing to protect the Stone and Quirrel set his ambush well before the Mirror of Erised. Is it any wonder that Dumbledore died? The Headmaster was crafty, not infallible, as his goof putting on a horcrux in Book Six of canon reminds us.

X-X-X

Harry put aside his plate of breakfast. He was eating well and feeling happy even if he had to hide at Hogwarts for the summer.

The best part, aside from its lack of Dursleys, was its overabundance of Ministry gossips and investigators, who were only slightly less chatty than the regular kind of gossips.

Harry had pieced together much since he had his invisibility cloak and knew the hallways well. He listened to the pompous people from the Ministry. While Professor Flamel said that Quirrel had been possessed, Harry only now understood what that meant from listening to these conversation, then looking the terms up.

The first edition Trimble book did have a decent, if short, section on possession. While Harry hadn't looked past ghosts or poltergeists before, possession was different and well covered.

Every time Harry thought he knew about this world, someone showed him there was another mystery he needed to examine. Wraiths... Possession... What witch or wizard had delved deep enough to make these things real?

Harry pulled his cloak over his head and wandered out into the corridors. He was still under his cloak when he walked past the area where he'd been attacked. He could have gone a different route, but he liked to see this spot. A reminder. A warning.

It was usually good for overhearing things as a few Ministry-types still visited.

From what Harry had overheard, the lightning that had killed Quirrel had done significant damage to the spirit that possessed him, but it had not destroyed the spirit.

No one said the name He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named or You-Know-Who, but that was who they meant. Even if they couldn't admit it or say it to their superiors or write it on a sheet of parchment. Everyone knew, but no one Knew. Cravens.

Harry had memorized faces even if he hadn't learned their names. It was better to know now. Someone had tried to make him dead before he was two. He'd tried again to make Harry dead at eleven. For luck and a little bit of skill, Harry was still walking around, though a lot less innocent now.

A lot more desperate and focused, as well.

Harry had no idea why the Killing Curse had twice failed to do as it promised. So he was working on his spells, just like the Trimble book had instructed. His cutter, Diviso performed with a corkscrew aimed at the target, was able to cut through the meat on the plates of food brought by the elves. So it wasn't close to combat-effective, but he kept working on it.

His Sunfire and Water Globe were useful, which was why he was headed outside to practice them – maybe after a visit to Hogsmeade.

He was still wary of Fulmenifer. He dared not use it outside around any moistness, which was a problem considering there was a lake in front of Hogwarts. Harry had been 'lucky' to be attacked inside the castle a month earlier.

Had he tried the Lightning-Bearer outside, both he and 'Quirrel' might have wound up crisped. The Water Globe which he had used first had created water on the floor, true, but it had been far enough from Harry not to damage him when he sent the lightning.

Harry walked softly down the stairs to the main floor. He had purchased a hat he could wear when he ventured into Hogsmeade on some afternoons. There were plenty of children who lived there with their families. Harry didn't look odd at all when he bought a new shirt or stocked up on some potions ingredients or bars of chocolate.

He wasn't going any further than Hogsmeade today. He had learned about flooing and had made it to Diagon Alley a few times. The used book stores were marvels, but Harry had to be careful about what he acquired. He had no home to store things. (He also learned about the Knight Bus and vowed never to use it again if he had half a choice.)

He got outside and it was a beautiful day. He kept his cloak on until he was very close to Hogsmeade. Then he traded out the cloak for his hat. He didn't have a scar to hide any more, but his messy hair was almost as much a signature. Long, short, it didn't much matter. It always looked messy.

Today Harry was working on his newest project, trying to learn about his family history. There were plenty of fairy tales about the Boy-Who-Lived, many of them in print. There was very little about the lives of his parents or grandparents or anyone else named Potter. Harry had had to ask about a public library (not a one) or archives at the Daily Prophet (open every second Tuesday from one to three).

Harry had a few newspaper clippings of his grandparents' deaths and his parents' marriage and a party hosted at Godric's Hall in Godric's Hollow. Harry presumed this was where the Potters had lived.

He wanted more. He wanted to go back further. He wanted names and places where they'd lived. Harry had even asked the goblins the last time he was in Diagon Alley, but there was no help.

To goblins, all the Potters were was a vault number or two. Inside them, there were no repositories of books or enchanted trinkets or collections of old letters. Nothing personal. Indeed, Books of Family Magic were strictly prohibited from being stored in a Gringotts vault.

Harry didn't ask why. He assumed it was a treaty or a bit of spite on someone's part, not wanting valuable magic protected (or stolen) by goblins.

Harry meandered through the stores, asked over the used bookstores in Hogsmeade, and found he had already been to both of them. One had had a few back numbers of the Daily Prophet for sale, but none as old as Harry would have wanted. He asked several people, none of whom recognized him, about other wizard stores, other places where old books or old newspapers might be sold. The answers weren't very helpful.

If it didn't exist in Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade, according to his sources, it didn't exist for public sale. Was there no wizard village in Wales? Just the mixed Godric's Hollow which had long ceased to have any wizard-only businesses.

Harry gave up for now. He purchased the materials for a potion he was considering making, one of the ones Snape should have taught but hadn't. Wit-Sharpening seemed very simple to make and useful for someone venturing into a ponderous tome for the first time.

Harry walked back to the castle under his cloak, but remained on the grounds for a time. He strengthened his Sunfire and his Water Globe and looked around for a non-soggy spot where he might work on the Fulmenifer. None. He donned his cloak once more and began his silent walk into the castle and upstairs.

There was a grate on the floor in the hallway on the fourth floor. The grate did stretch from wall to wall, but it was only a few inches tall. It didn't block his progress, but it did tickle Harry's curiosity.

Where had it come from? Harry looked at the wall where there was an opening now visible. He'd never noticed something like that before. The opening was huge, taller than him. Harry tried to lift the grate with his hand. No. He levitated it with his wand. When he got it almost back in place, Harry saw the grate seem to disappear into the wall.

Harry set the grate down again on the hallway floor and walked inside the opening. Now Harry felt small as the curved ceiling soared above his head. If he were twins, he could stand on his own shoulders to touch the top of the circular opening. Harry lit his wand with a simple Lumos and began walking. He could tell he was going up. The air smelled fresher. He found a junction with another pipe. He decided to turn around and go deeper down the pipe.

He lost track of time during his adventure, but his belly told him it was time to find some food. He turned around from where he was in the lower dungeon. He was nowhere near the end of the pipe, but the bad smells were getting worse.

Harry exited from the opened grate on the fourth floor, but this time two people were there to see him.

"Oh..." He was a bit too slow stepping back into the tunnel. He hadn't been wearing his cloak inside that pipe/tunnel. Silly of him.

"Mr. Potter, I've been meaning to find you, though I didn't think it would be so soon."

Harry adjusted to the brighter light in the hall. He knew that voice. "Professor Flamel?"

Just his rotten luck to run into a person who was actually tying to find him. If he hadn't been curious about this grate...

Harry looked at Flamel. He couldn't really make much out about the professor. He was old and... He was old. Harry looked for details. He couldn't tell how much hair the professor had or what color it was. He couldn't tell how tall the man was. It was rather disconcerting, whatever this magic was. He was a perfectly bland old man.

All the easier to hide while out walking around? There wasn't enough detail to distinguish him from any other man older than Vernon Dursley, at least to Harry right now.

Harry thought of Flamel's words... Why had he been looking for Harry? He wondered if his summer of freedom was ending early. Had someone noticed or complained, one of those visitors from the Ministry?

Maybe he had more questions? Harry thought he'd been uncommonly chatty when he first met Professor Flamel, which made Harry a little suspicious. Magic was a great thing, but it was also tricky. What had Professor Flamel done to Harry to get him so willing to speak? Or had that been all Harry?

"Calm yourself, young man. You've gone very red all of a sudden."

Harry mastered himself.

"Better?"

"Yes, sir."

The Professor nodded. "This is my wife, who is also Professor Flamel for this upcoming year. She will teach, though we are as yet undecided on what courses."

"Professor." Harry tipped his head to her. It seemed polite. She looked like a perfectly nice witch...and that was all he got. Nice for her. Old for her husband. How were his eyes failing him so?

"I've been trying to get a handle on this old pile of stones. I was told by reliable sources that there are inexplicably large tunnels or pipes in the walls. Worrisome, so I had my sources, the elves, you see, leave a grate open so I could do some exploring."

"Elves?"

"House elves," the female Professor Flamel said. "I take it..."

"Oh, I know about house elves. I was wondering if there was another kind."

"There have been other kinds, of course, but they may have hidden themselves. Alternately, they may have died out. As for this tunnel, Penny had forbidden me to go looking until I had the appropriate clothing on and the enchantments, of course... And I find someone has already been exploring. Very dangerous... How deep did you go and what did you find?"

Harry began to see the risk he had taken. It had been a little stupid. There was something down there that smelled very bad. What if he had fallen? He would try to change, though he doubted it would be easy.

"Well, I could see out of grates on the fifth, fourth, third, second, first floors, and two levels of the dungeon, then there were some deeper levels that I had no idea about..."

"Excellent. You kept yourself to the safe levels. The elves dare not go any further. If you'll excuse us, we would like to see for ourselves. And perhaps make a few things safer for the school..."

The pair of elderly magicals looked rather like they were geared up for battle, Harry thought. 'Appropriate clothing..." Harry was wearing rather thin clothing for the kind of explorations he'd done. Well, another lesson learned.

What were they afraid of? What had Harry been smelling in that tunnel? He wondered, but did not ask. "Good afternoon, Professors."

They disappeared into the grate, then levitated the grate closed behind them. Harry had been through that opening, he had just seen the grate levitated into position, and now he couldn't tell where it had all happened. There was significant magic trying to keep the grates inconspicuous.

Harry smiled. He'd survived what turned out to be a foolish little adventure, plus Professor Flamel had kept his promise. He had let Harry stay, which was very nice.

He'd remember this day and ask in the future what exactly Harry hadn't discovered in those tunnels or pipes or whatever they were.

Harry found himself reminded of another topic, namely the Elixir of Life, the Philosopher's Stone, and these very mysterious Flamels. He had heard all these terms thrown around for the last month, but he hadn't felt much need to look into them. Yet.

Harry donned his cloak and moved swiftly through the halls. After he ate a late, late lunch, Harry snuck into the Hogwarts library under his cloak. He was in luck, Madam Pince wasn't patroling the shelves or repairing books. She was gone for now.

Harry just wished the books were better organized. An index? Anything. He wished he could find the old numbers of the Daily Prophet, too. The school received them. Harry had looked at a few, but did they get rid of them once they were old?

Harry's perseverance eventually paid off in sickles and galleons. According to the book Harry found very close to dusk, the Flamels were seven hundred years old...thanks to some special stone they had enchanted. But hadn't Quirrel stolen it, then accidentally destroyed it? The Flamels still moved around fully alive, even if Harry couldn't make out much about them. They must have had more than one stone.

X-X-X

Harry had a problem. It was simple to state, but he'd be dropped back into a Dursley hell if he could figure out how to solve it. The question was this: How do you find something that is generally regarded as hidden? Namely, how did Harry, the last Potter, actually find the Potter lands?

People need a purpose that they select for themselves. No one ever told you that, Harry knew, but it was true. All the truer for how people didn't talk about it.

His purpose, for now, was to find his family's lands even through whatever kept them hidden. He could take himself to Godric's Hollow and stumble around looking for them. Or he could get clever.

But how...

Harry wished he'd run into the Flamels again. Maybe they'd suggest something.

Hogwarts in the summer was much better than Privet Drive, but Harry decided he wasn't staying at Hogwarts the next summer. He decided to find a tent or something the next time he was in Hogsmeade. For when he figured out how to get onto his family's lands.

He was outside with his plate of lunch when the rather old, rather weathered owl found him. Errol, the Weasley owl.

He read the messy letter quickly. Ron's handwriting was getting better, as was Harry's. Quills were still a bit of a mystery to him.

They had invited him to spend the last ten days before school restarted at their home, The Burrow. Ron's letters offered to pick Harry up from Surrey.

Well, Harry wasn't returning to Surrey and he wasn't admitting to where he'd been for the summer. So he'd have to take the Knight Bus. That was more plausible for him to use than flooing from Hogsmeade.

The Knight Bus, the ghastly things wizards created...

Harry wanted to see Ron's house. He now wanted to see if he could get a little further along on his project. How could Harry ask one of them about finding hidden lands? Without admitting what he'd done this summer...

So he wrote to Ron and took the letter to Hedwig in the owlery. Errol took up residence and made it clear he wasn't returning to the Burrow anytime soon.

Harry increased the tempo of his remaining projects. He doubted he would be able to use magic once he was outside Hogwarts or its grounds. Best not to tempt things.

One week later, Harry decided that Ron's home was very cozy and amusing, if loud. The twins made noises which made Percy grumble which made Ron's mother yell. And she could yell.

Ron was happier at the Burrow than he usually was at Hogwarts. Here he could laze if he wanted. He could climb a tree or fly when he wanted. He could be ordered by his mother to fling garden gnomes. If the twins were chaos, and Percy was order, then Ron was family. He didn't see it, not yet, but Harry had a sense of it. Ron wouldn't be happy with that particular gift, perhaps not for a long time when he became a father. Harry wondered if Ron's father, Arthur, also had a similar gift while his other brothers had different ones.

Harry ate well. What the house elves cooked was different from what Mrs. Weasley cooked. (Which was also different from what Harry had learned to cook for his aunt and uncle.) Harry couldn't rank them, he just liked food with healthy portions.

It was nearing their return to Hogwarts. Ginny was an awkward little thing who didn't seem able to string together more than four words. Ron was getting surly about going back to school. The twins had turned up the heat on their forty flavors of madness. Percy looked like he would actually be the first Weasley to go bald, especially because he was pulling out his own hair in frustration. (Not fair for him that he was one person representing order when there were two, well attuned to each other, representing chaos.)

Harry just smiled. This is what he had never had, a family that was imperfect and pushy and volatile. If Harry had his mother or a younger brother or a sister or a father, what would life have been like? Something like this, with a little less chaos?

Harry liked all of them more that he'd spent time with them in their home. He could actually see them as they most often were. But this visit was almost complete. They'd gone to Diagon Alley the prior day to fill their school lists. Harry had pretended to shop. He'd long since bought what he needed, which hadn't included those Lockhart books. The man was no adventurer. A fashion consultant, perhaps. Harry had tagged along, but hadn't been able to duck into more than one used book store where Mrs. Weasley had bought most of Ginny's books.

"Breakfast was great," Harry said, after Mr. Weasley had Floo'd to work and Floo'd home claiming he'd forgotten something. He didn't say what it was, just something he needed to take with him, predictably he couldn't find it.

Mrs. Weasley smiled, whether at her absent-minded husband or at Harry's compliment was less than clear. Everyone else was still in bed.

Harry again cleared the table which again shocked Mrs. Weasley into silence. What? He'd learned manners, if nothing else, from living in Little Whinging.

"Anything else, Mrs. Weasley?"

"Well, no, Harry. Go up and get your bath now."

Harry nodded and climbed the stairs. The stairs leaned. The house leaned. The bath tub leaned which made taking a bath rather fun.

He was thinking about what he needed to get out of his trunk when he stubbed his toe on a book, of all thing. "Oww."

He leaned down and picked up a black diary from the floor. It had a name engraved on the back, Tom Marvolo Riddle. So it obviously didn't belong to a Weasley.

Harry walked it back down the stairs and found Mr. Weasley still turning over a pile of old newspapers.

"Is this what you were looking for? I found it upstairs," Harry said. He handed the book over.

Mr. Weasley shook his head, but looked at the volume.

"Percy? Percy!"

The oldest of the Weasley children still at home came down the stairs with messy hair and in his pajamas. "Yes, Father?" He yawned.

"Did you purchase a diary?" Mr. Weasley held up the book.

"I did. But it's not black like that."

"Did anyone else purchase something like this yesterday?"

"No, I don't think so, no."

"Have a good day," Arthur said. "Thank you, Harry. I'll take this in to work. I can feel it has some magical properties. Best be sure."

"Okay, Mr. Weasley."

"I'm not going to find what I'm looking for now. I'm off again, Molly." He made the flames of the fireplace green and announced his destination. Then he walked into the fire.

Wizards, Harry thought. _Let's walk through fire._ And no one had thought it a bad idea.

Harry went back upstairs and got his bath.

Much later, an agitated Mr. Weasley entered the grove where they flew brooms and played a last game of Quidditch for the summer. Harry was thinking about trying out this year for the house team.

Nuts, he'd forgotten to buy a broom on one of his many trips. He might need to sneak away the next afternoon.

He had his tent, of course, but what adventurer went exploring without a broom? Though the stories the twins told about that Oliver Wood made Harry wonder about this choice.

Mr. Weasley headed to Harry. Strange.

"Harry, can I talk to you?" Arthur Weasley asked. He pointed to a spot outside the grove.

Harry shrugged, but got up and walked toward him.

"Just Harry. It's nothing bad," he said to his children, his extremely curious and devious children.

Harry walked in silence with Mr. Weasley to the little shed where he kept his collection of plugs, among other things.

"That diary, where did you find it?" Mr. Weasley asked.

The diary, something about it must have been real trouble. Mr. Weasley looked angry. "Upstairs near the bathroom. Stubbed my toe on it."

"Right, right. It was enchanted. Are you sure it wasn't yours?"

"No."

"I thought not. Did you see it anywhere else before this morning? Strange package, strange owl, or something yesterday in Diagon Alley?

"No, sir."

"I suppose I'll have to talk to my children."

"What was it, Mr. Weasley? You said it was enchanted."

"Yes. It was something quite...well, nasty. You were very smart to bring it to me. I had to hand it off to some very clever chaps at the Ministry. They were quite alarmed as well."

"But we're okay now?" Harry asked.

Mr. Weasley remembered to smile, finally. "I dare say we are."

"Good."

By supper, it turned out that the diary had been among Ginny Weasley's books. She hadn't remembered purchasing it or dropping it. She had barely had a chance to crack it open and get a look at it. She'd minded that it had a boy's name embossed on it, but a second-hand diary with blank pages was better than none at all.

Arthur promised his daughter a new diary.

"Why?" Fred or George asked.

"Because the one she dropped was cursed."

"Cursed?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"Yes. Best we knew about it as soon as we did." Mr. Weasley nodded at Harry, but said nothing else.

"Well, how did Ginny get it?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

"I've handed the matter over to Amelia Bones."

"Arthur?"

"It's taken care of, dear." It was an answer that satisfied no one, but Mr. Weasley didn't vary from it.

The next day, the last before they all went to Hogwarts, Harry wandered away from the grove where the others were flying. He used the hated Knight Bus to get to Diagon Alley. In less than an hour, he had his broom tucked in his trunk and was back in the grove before anyone had come looking for him. Apparently people wandering off for an hour at a time was nothing unusual here. Little arguments, heated tempers, curiosity, all the usual suspects.

Dinner that night, the night before they returned to school, was extra special. Roast chicken and all the trimmings, including roasted potatoes fresh from the garden and mashed carrots studded with peas.

It was as good as any feast Harry had eaten at Hogwarts.

That night, Ron asked Harry how he'd liked Ottery St. Catchpole and the Burrow.

"I loved visiting," Harry said.

"Will you come back next summer?" Ron asked.

"Maybe for a week, but I've other plans first."

"Your aunt and uncle?"

"Maybe." Which meant no.

What Harry wasn't saying was that he now had dreams of family. They might not be alive now, but Harry wanted to know something about them. Living with a real family, the Weasleys, for more than a week centered Harry's imagination.

Harry also had had a family, a good one. He planned to spend the next summer learning about where his parents, their parents, and any more distant branches had lived. Where he'd been born, where his people had lived, where the family's land was or had been.

This year's summer adventure had been Hogwarts. Next year's was, he thought, to be at Godric's Hollow, assuming the clues kept pointing in that direction.

Harry went to sleep dreaming of adventures and family. And camping and magic.

He woke sometime after two. He couldn't hear Ron's snoring. He couldn't hear anything.

"Hello?" he called out.

"The great Harry Potter sir says hello."

A green fleshed creature – a particularly battered specimen of house elf – came into the moon light. He seemed ecstatic or astonished.

Harry sat up, or tried to. He found he couldn't move.

"Are you immobilizing me?" Harry asked.

"Dobby is sorry, but yes."

None of the books he'd read – or the conversations he'd had with the elves at Hogwarts – had prepared Harry for this.

"Can you tell me why?"

"Dobby be waiting until you were leaving Hogwarts, Harry Potter. But you stayed every day of the summer until you came to see Harry Potter sir's Weasels. Tonight I be finishing my work early so I could talk to you..."

"About what, Dobby?"

"How to say? Where to start?"

"Tell me, please."

The elf gulped. "Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts..."

Well, the elf sounded completely bonkers. But Harry knew about crazy people. Agree with them, make them explain, make them break their own delusions, if such a thing was possible. And don't panic. Panic was death.

"Why not?" Harry asked.

"Dobby hears things. About the great Harry Potter. He hears bad things, too. Plots. Danger. At Hogwarts this year. He doesn't understand all that he hears. No. He doesn't."

"And what will happen?"

Dobby burst into tears. "Dobby doesn't know."

"And who put it into motion?"

Dobby ceased wailing. "Dobby cannot speak against his Master."

Which was his way of speaking against his Master.

"An old family?" Harry asked.

"No," Dobby said.

"Pretend old?"

Dobby wobbled his head. Yes.

"A wealthy family?"

Dobby nodded and tears splattered everywhere.

"Is it to do with You-Know-Who?"

Dobby teared up again, but kept his calm, such as it was.

Harry had studied up what he could about his family and what had ended it. The Death Eaters. Those who had been freed as guiltless hadn't been named in any books Harry found, but Harry had seen references in old Prophets to some trials. What were those names?

"So you work for the...Parkinsons?"

"No."

"Nott? Um, Rookwood? Malfoy..."

Here Dobby choked up. That was close enough to a yes. So obvious, Harry should have started with Malfoy.

"What did the trap consist of?"

"A book, Harry Potter sir."

Interesting, given the events of the last few days. "Black, a diary, with a name on it?"

"Yes." Dobby was almost in tears again.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle?"

"How did Harry Potter sir know?"

"It's been turned into the...Aurors."

What a strange word, Auror.

"You wouldn't lie to Dobby...but how could you know about the book unless you'd seen it?"

"Exactly. Release me." A demand, firmly made. Next, an offer of kindness? "Would you like some tea?" Harry asked.

"Harry Potter offers Dobby tea?"

It was apparently the wrong thing to say. The creature burst into tears again. This Dobby was unlike any house elf Harry had ever met.

Harry found he was free to sit up, though. He heard the house waking up, frightened conversations... Dobby had frozen everyone in the Burrow.

"Dobby knew Harry Potter was great. Dobby had not needed to worry at all... Dobby leaves."

And he did.

The whole house woke. Arthur Weasley wanted to know what had happened, then Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny all had to hear the story before Mrs. Weasley shushed them. Percy pretended he had heard nothing at all.

Harry did not get back to sleep for some time.

Harry would need to learn a lot more about house elves. And how to keep them away while he was adventuring. That could have been a disaster.

X-X-X

The Welcoming Feast was more fun and more solemn than Harry remembered from the year before. More fun because the food was served at the beginning while the first-year students sat at a special table in the front before their sorting. Students who had been well fed were much more vigorous in welcoming their new housemates.

The solemnity came when Professor Dumbledore's contributions to the school were discussed and memorialized.

The Professors Flamel were already changing Hogwarts on the first day.

It wasn't long before Harry noticed that more than rituals were changing.

People were happier.

Hermione was less nervous and she smiled. She, of course, put three books in Harry's arms during the first breakfast of the year and insisted he read them. Not gifts, but loans from her collection. She was hoping Harry would like them enough to buy copies for himself. How many hours had she spent looking at the shelves in book stores over the summer? Harry would have to return the favor if he could. Hermione devoured books faster, though. Maybe he could find other things to repay her.

Neville continued to smile after coming back from Charms class. He had a dreamy sort of happiness. He'd looked tense on the train. Harry wondered about Neville's summer and if he'd had any fun at all.

Ron wasn't as fun as he was at the Burrow, but he wasn't as grumpy as he had been in the days leading up to their return to school.

The Weasley twins were calmer. The Patil twins were happy to see each other. The year before they'd fought several times because of silly things, like their being in different houses.

What had changed over the summer? Harry wasn't quite sure, yet.

Classes were different, from the schedules down to the tone.

Professor Snape was a changed man, first off. As was Professor Binns. The book was still a bore, but the Professor was much more engaging somehow. Maybe one of the Professors Flamel had threatened to take over his classes?

No one announced what class the lady Professor Flamel was teaching, but several teachers were on their very best behavior.

Not everything was perfect. Professor Lockhart proved himself as dim as a sack of dragon dung. Harry despaired of two years of poor professors in the subject he liked the best. Where were the curses or creatures? Where was the cleverness he prized? Not there in those blond locks...

On Friday, at lunch, the Headmaster stood up and addressed the hall. "I am most displeased with a member of the staff. He has administered tests concerned with his preferred hair unguents. He has unleashed Cornish pixies on very young students in their first classes at this school. He has proved himself unfit to serve as a teacher in this school or any other. If you'd do the honors of pest removal, my dear..."

Lockhart smiled at first as he recognized himself in the words. He only frowned, then screamed, after he felt the female Professor Flamel curse him. A stinging curse! Lockhart stumbled and limped out of the Great Hall. His purple robes began burning into ash, the man had grown a tail and violently green horns, and he seemed to belch clouds of orange smoke.

"I apologize for the pain any of you have felt from his poor teaching. I will either announce a new instructor or have my wife take the class. She served for sixteen years as Headmistress of Beauxbatons Academy, though that was sometime in the distant past. Expect an announcement at breakfast Monday morning."

Hermione was aghast.

Everyone else close to Harry seemed entertained or at least thoughtful. Harry just wondered when Snape was going to get chased out of the school. However, not all dreams were destined to come true.

"In the future, I wish to know immediately about misconduct among the teaching staff..."

Snape sat up very straight in his seat and did not look out into the sea of students.

Yes, the Flamels were watching him, Harry knew.

Hermione came to admit, over the course of the weekend, that perhaps the Flamels hadn't been wrong expelling and embarrassing Lockhart. But it was a slow bit of reality for her to adopt.

At supper Sunday evening, ahead of schedule, Headmaster Flamel introduced a witch who might have been three feet tall and two hundred years old. "Please welcome Madam Spurl."

The applause in the room was cautious and not very loud. Quirrel, Lockhart, and now Spurl. Plus whoever the older students had had. No one seemed very hopeful.

Harry expected to learn it from the book. He now had several Defense-related texts. Even his copy of Hogwarts:A History had valuable insights. Keeping trolls from the Forbidden Forest from getting onto the grounds and the like.

"Have you ever heard of her?" Harry asked Hermione later that night.

"No. And you think someone would have written about her. She looked older than most trees."

Harry smiled at her joke. Hermione might just learn to loosen up this year, but Harry wasn't risking his knuts on any wagers.

"Losing a centimeter a year until she just disappears," Harry said.

Hermione laughed. She was over Lockhart now. Hopefully.

X-X-X

In Harry's first class with Madam Spurl, the aged witch limped slowly from her office to the front of the class. "Burn those books Lockhart put on the syllabus. Worthless as the man who wrote them. Today we'll begin with enchantments. You, you, you: stand up and wheel that table over here. Go slowly and don't rock it too much..."

She certainly had a voice and a presence. Her eyes on Harry as she scanned the room made Harry feel guilty for things he never done – and he didn't know why.

"Why can't you move it with magic?" someone a little brave and a little lazy asked. Malfoy, perhaps?

"Ask me that after the demonstration."

The nervous students from Slytherin who'd been nominated to move a table got up and did as she had bid them. Then they promptly sat down and tried to dissolve into their desks, as if they weren't witches and wizards but were rather oddly shaped planks of pine.

"These objects are from my private collection. I always keep at least one copy, and hopefully the original, of any enchantment I'm called on to defeat or outwit."

She pulled the cloth on the largest item on the table. What was underneath was disappointing, a stone like any stone that might have been used to construct Hogwarts. How was it enchanted?

"This stone was in the foundation of a home in France sixty-three years ago. It had probably been there for two hundred years or longer. It takes any magic cast near it and uses it to summon ghosts, poltergeists, wraiths, and even worse members of the spirit class. The home it was in was filled with ghosts by the time the team I was on came to work on it. Some were pleasant, if confused. Some were violent. It was a horrible situation..."

Hermione had her hand up. Madam Spurl nodded at her.

"Who did it and do you know why they did it?"

"Who? No. Someone long dead. Nameless by that point in time. As for why, I have my guesses. Perhaps it was a clever attempt to ruin a family rather than declaring a blood feud. Fill a house full of ghosts, drive everyone insane. Perhaps it was a way to clear out unwanted ghosts and ghouls from a different property. The actual exorcism of spirits, after all, can curse a location for decades or centuries. This is why Hogwarts does not banish even its resident poltergeist. The unluckiness, or worse, that might result stops every petition."

Harry sat forward in his desk and began to pay attention. The teacher might not look like much, but there was nothing wrong with her mind. Nothing at all. She was chattering away, explaining more about ghosts than Harry had been able to find in any of his books.

Yes, this was a very different teacher.

Harry gave his full interest to her presentations on the other two items. One converted magic into heat. Boring? No, not at all. The statue had been in a tunnel section that had killed three different teams of curse breakers and no one could figure out how they kept dying. The curse breakers had used magic, of course. The magic had caused the statue to heat up. That heat had melted small amounts of wax which had been mixed with vaporous poisons, gases which had survived for thousands of years just to stop anyone magical from bypassing the trap.

"There was enough of that wax on the walls to kill thousands," Madam Spurl said.

"How did you survive?" Hermione asked.

Madam Spurl just smiled. She knew how to keep a room interested.

The third item was a hand mirror in an old style. Madam Spurl put on a glove before picking it up to show the class.

"This mirror belonged to the Princess Victoria who would become Queen Victoria. At some point, it came into a witch's hand, a devious specimen of our race. She cursed the mirror and attempted to return it to then-Queen Victoria. Thankfully, that return did not happen. For if any magical, including a squib, which Queen Victoria was believed to have been, touched the mirror barehanded and looked into it, then the Medusa's Curse would slowly turn him or her into stone..."

"Slowly?" Hermione echoed.

"This mirror killed five people we know of so we understand how this particular curse works based on what happened to the victims. First, the fingers would numb, prompting the user to put the mirror down. Then the toes, the nose, the knees, the elbows. Then the fingers would harden, never to release. Within three hours, the witch, wizard, or squib would have a heart of stone, thence be fully dead according to healing lore. The eyes, however, could still glance around even after the tongue was immobilized. The eyes weren't frozen for some time nor the brain fully dead. It was a horrible version of an already horrible curse."

Madam Spurl smiled. No one made a sound, not a cough or the slightest movement. She covered all three objects again.

"You and you, push this cart back against the wall. No magic. Unless someone wishes to try..."

There were no objections this time.

Everyone was still and silent during the remainder of her lecture. "You must understand the particular dangers of being a witch or wizard in this world. Others have come before you and left horrible things behind. I am particularly interested in showing you how the dark forces of the world hid their dire works so that you do not lose your freedom or your lives or your magic. This class, this year, will cover curses and enchantments and wards, particularly detecting and avoiding them. Not disarming them or defeating them. You're twelve and I know that. So don't ask. Beg, borrow, or steal the notes from the seventh years and study them when you're old enough. Creatures are among what I'm teaching to my third and sixth years, but I'm no specialist. Just a gifted amateur. Fourth years get deeper into curses and jinxes. The OWL students get battered about the head and ears with everything. Be glad you're young right now. Dismissed."

As Harry packed up to leave, he decided Madam Spurl's first class was better than McGonagall's and on par with Flitwick's. Harry was enchanted with the material. It was cruel and horrible stuff, but ever so interesting. It was also the material he needed to know. He didn't intend to let a Killing Curse wash over him again.

"What book should we purchase?" Hermione asked after almost everyone was gone.

Harry had to temper his smile. Of course she would ask about the book.

"I give notes. There is no assigned text, not for your year, not for any year. None of them are worth the galleons. A few pages here, a few lines there are of acceptable quality. I'll point you to the things you need to know."

Hermione was, predictably, scandalized. "Why?"

Harry thought she'd explained it well enough.

Madam Spurl was willing to try again to make herself clear. "Theory is..." She cleared her throat.

"Theory isn't my interest, let's say that. What I treasure is experience from people who have done things. The problem there is that those who really do things never write it down for the public. They're too busy doing something or planning some future adventure. The ones who slip from that path to write down what they know...there's almost no reason to read what they wrote."

Harry stayed after the next class and asked her opinion about the Trimble book, specifically the two pages he admired in the first edition. Madam Spurl approved of the recommendations, but cautioned Harry that two pages out of six hundred was a very poor ratio. Genuine information was almost always that rare and precious.

At the end of her second week teaching, Madam Spurl speared all of her students into silence. The lecture was over. What else was there?

"I believe in hard tasks. Impossible ones. I've waited a century to complete some of the things I've done. We don't have the time for that, so I'll go a little easy on you. A little. I'm assigning a year-end project. You will share this project with every one of my students."

"Including the NEWT students?" Hermione asked.

"They are part of 'every one,' Miss Granger. I'll put you in pairs so you have someone to help. Your task? I've been thinking about it a while and I've got a good one. The role of the Defense Professor at Hogwarts is rumored to be cursed. Ask around, it's part of the task. I want you to collect facts, gossip, observations, whatever you like and decide on a hypothesis.

"Don't tell me your guess, that's not enough. What I want from you by Yule break is a test I can perform: a spell, a ritual, a potion, something definitive. Do this so I can see if your guess is correct or not. After the New Year, I will perform each suggested test, assuming it's safe and likely to help diagnose this supposed curse. I will not perform any ritual that requires me to sing, dance, or take off my clothes. Understood? We'll repeat the process in the spring if we need to. Dismissed."

"That's impossible," Hermione muttered. Then Ron. Then Neville. Then pretty much everyone in the hall after the class was over said it was impossible.

It did sound challenging. Harry liked it all the better, aside from the fact he'd been assigned to work with Lavender Brown.

X-X-X

Ron only seemed to love something when it disappeared. Case in point: his rat, Scabbers. It disappeared the second day of October. Ron milked his unhappiness for three weeks before he couldn't find anyone in the school of listen to him. Then he was back to normal, fun, demanding of one game or another, or perhaps a bit of flying. The twins' pranking him might have either sped things up or slowed them down. It was hard to tell with the twins. They could make things better and worse at the same time, as if chaos had been given a pair of bodies it actually liked.

Hermione and Neville and Harry spent more time together, often in the library, during Ron's Tantrum as it came to be known. Neville turned out to be a stable, fine chap. He could talk an ear off if you talked about a potions ingredient or made some observation about herbology. Hermione was like that about books, generally. Harry supposed he was like that on the topic of magical preparation or adventuring.

Lavender refused to have anything to do with Madam Spurl's assignment, but Harry enjoyed the challenge. He thought he was a little young to actually come up with something valuable, but he enjoyed trying to think the way she wanted them to think.

What could the curse be?

Harry looked through many books and talked to many sources of gossip, including more than a few of the castle ghosts. The Defense Professors really had fared poorly. Some were old and died of natural causes, some were young and died of unnatural causes. The worst were the ones who did not die, but suffered some permanent malady or infirmity. Then there were the weird ones. One professor had been crushed by a transfigured chicken. Another had stepped on a disappearing stairs and lost his legs – and his life. A third had tucked his wand into a pocket in trousers he was wearing and blown off his back side.

They had laughed about that, the group he considered his friends, but it worried Harry. He was glad Madam Spurl was trying to do something about it.

One very unpleasant thing happened in the middle of November. Harry had been on the fifth floor doing Lightning-Bearer practice when Peeves barged in. Not only did the poltergeist demand to be assaulted by the lightning, but he made it clear why he enjoyed it. Harry had never exactly gotten The Talk before, not from Uncle Vernon and certainly not from a spirit. But the words "Potty" and "Rotty" had been overwhelmed by Peeves trying to explain why he had to be shocked. Often. Tingly, in Peeves' language, had rhymed with many other words, none of which Harry ever wanted to hear again.

The goop the poltergeist left on a wall after Harry used the fulmenifer... Harry thought he was going to be sick. The poltergeist hadn't twitched in pain, but from the opposite, pleasure.

These were not things Harry needed to know. Ever. He would never be able to unlearn the details of poltergeist romance... Yeuck.

He decided he needed a way to confine a poltergeist or keep it away from him. Perhaps he could get Hermione to help without explaining exactly why he needed the spell or enchantment. He didn't want to give The Talk to his female friend. No way. Not even if he was talking about the pain poltergeists had to receive for pleasure. Horrible, all of them. Thankfully Hogwarts only had one spirit stalking Harry, for now. He intended to keep it that way.

X-X-X

It was December when Harry decided to sign only his own name on the Defense project he'd worked so hard on. He'd pushed Lavender to help, but she hadn't. She didn't need the grade, then, either.

Hermione approved.

Ron shrugged, but said Lavender would hate him for it. Forever.

Neville said Lavender had to learn about the whole world, not just what was in Teen Witch Weekly. If a bad mark got her parents angry with her...it was worth it all. He also said Lavender would hate him for it. Forever.

Harry knew they were all correct. He did it anyway.

The other groups Harry knew in Gryffindor had worked hard. Hermione and Seamus had proposed a test for curses transmitted by the smell of a long-lasting potion. The Defense Professor spent a lot of time in that class room.

Ron and Parvati had cracked a few books, but Ron had drawn on things he said he'd learned from his oldest brother, who was a cursebreaker. He and Parvati proposed curse-objects, like the kind found in some Egyptian tombs.

Neville and Dean had worked harder than any of them, but Dean had eventually landed on the idea of a rune that was hidden behind a line of false mortar. So that a large stone would appear to be far smaller while obscuring whatever rune powered the curse.

Harry couldn't see how someone would change a Hogwarts stone without someone noticing.

Harry's idea that he would have to claim as his own was also about runes, which he hoped to further study in Ancient Runes the following year. He believed the curse was a rune that had been hidden somewhere in the castle in one of the abandoned rooms or corridors. It wouldn't be close to the Defnse classroom at all.

He had come by his thought from a re-reading of the ninth edition of Hogwarts: A History. The castle was much vaster than any of them had known. Harry had found a few of the areas where whole portions of the castle had actually been bricked off. It had not always been so and the variety of classes had not always been so limited. They were all training as generalists now, a little potion work, a little spell work, a little theory.

Harry went to class on the day the assignment was due. Lavender sidled up to him. "I was thinking, Harry..."

"Good."

"What I was saying was that I think I would owe you if you let me write my name on the assignment..."

"I thought you'd worked out your own answer. I asked and asked if you'd like to help."

Lavender went for tears. Harry had never seen her cry. It was a horrible sight. He did not run away from her. He wanted to have this conversation out now, before class started, even if everyone from Slytherin was staring at Harry and Lavender as if they were particularly disgusting, failed potions attempts.

When Lavender stopped, Harry said. "I did what you asked. I left you alone and I did the assignment myself. I'd suggest putting your name on some kind of parchment and writing down something. You must have a guess."

Harry walked in the door. He felt like hell. He felt like giving in and putting Lavender's name on his assignment. But he didn't. He had done this work and Lavender hadn't. He would not lie.

Madam Spurl hobbled into the room. She was using a cane as she sometimes did. She looked so frail, but none of her students actually believed it. Her body might not be a strong one, but a witch could rely on other tools, other powers.

"Pass them forward."

Harry did. He noted that Lavender handed in nothing. He did feel pity for her, a little. What had she been thinking?

Madam Spurl leafed through them, nodding or scowling as she figured out their premises. "Let's have Malfoy and Davis up front. Tell us your hypothesis."

Malfoy made Tracy Davis speak. "We would like Madam Spurl to test the door, specifically, the doorknob, for a curse."

"What kind of curse? There is no one spell for all curses," Madam Spurl said.

"I don't know," Davis said.

"Mr. Malfoy?"

"An insanity hex tied to a person over the age of twenty?"

Madam Spurl looked solemn. "So you have studied your family's history. A Malfoy in the main line in France did use such a curse to wither away several of the minor branches of the family. I even keep one of the doorknobs in my private collection. Glad to see you're a fan of your family history. Be seated, both of you."

Malfoy scowled but returned to his desk. Davis looked relieved.

Harry wondered if Madam Spurl had ever been in a Potter house unraveling some curse. How had he never thought to ask? He would. He scrawled himself a note.

Madam Spurl leaned on her cane and walked to the door. She cast four spells silently. "It was an intriguing idea. Unfortunately, none of the insanity curses that can adhere to metal are present, not even the one that the Malfoys commissioned. I continued testing. No curse residues at all in the metal. I'll test the door itself if someone proposed it."

Harry looked around his classmates. It seemed like no one had.

"Greengrass and Zabini. Stand. Let's hear your test."

The wizard Zabini looked at his partner before clearing his throat. "At least three Defense professors have died of this curse. Daphne and I propose hiring a necromancer to bring back one of these spirits and find out how they died."

Madam Spurl looked like someone had just plunked a roast goose on her dinner plate. "Now that is thinking. Sit down you pair, well done."

Was that it, find a ghost? Harry knew so little about them. Could they really tell what was happening?

"While I wish I could, I cannot perform the test they have outlined. First, I am not a necromancer. Second, I don't know any. Third, no one has publicly practiced necromancy in two hundred-plus years. I'm sure they still exist, but hiring one to come to Hogwarts to perform this test is impossible. However, it is an excellent idea."

"What about the Resurrection Stone?" Parkinson asked. "Use it and summon the dead."

"Do you have one? Or know where one is?"

"No."

"No. Because an object like that, created by a supernatural being or a wizard who has dabbled far beyond the lines of what is safe, is rare, if it exists at all. It can do what was rumored to take a hundred years of study in necromancy, with no physical or magical cost to the user. There was an emotional toll, if I remember the stories well. Such a thing violates much of our understanding of magic. I'm not saying it could not exist. I am saying the madman who created it knew much more about magic than we do at present. So I doubt it is more than a storyteller's fancy."

The room looked confused. Harry was not the only one.

"So, it was a fine idea, but impossible to perform the test. Perhaps now you see why the curse, if it is a curse, has lasted so long. Magic is a truly wonderful thing, but its forms are varied and mysterious. In fact, many of them make little sense at all."

She looked around the room.

"Speaking of tests I can't perform, those who made a proposal about Runes, please stand."

Harry did so.

"There are a number of you. I think we'll see a fair few of you in Ancient Runes next year. Then I've done my work. Can't be a good cursebreaker without knowing something in the field. They've fallen out of favor lately, runes and rituals and their kin, but they still exist in the tombs and tunnels of magical ruins."

Lavender was also standing. Harry narrowed his eyes when he saw that.

"Runes are an excellent idea," Madam Spurl said. "But impractical to test for."

"You can't?" Harry asked, though he shouldn't have been surprised given the way she introduced runes.

"If you tell me exactly where you wish me to look, perhaps. I can test a room at a time or part of a corridor. But all of the castle at one time? All of its well-known hidden areas? Remember, it's well known that Hogwarts has blocked off areas. It's not well know where all of them are. No. No one possesses that strength, Mr. Potter. I'm glad you think so highly of me. I had a certain sixth year student refer to me as a toadstool yesterday. I dare say she wasn't much of an advocate for my skills."

Harry just nodded, as did some of the others who were standing. Others struggled not to grin or laugh.

Harry hadn't considered how to do the test he'd written down. He just assumed someone might know how.

"Don't fear. Curse breakers have been brought in four times over the last few decades to look for such things. Not all of them could have been incompetent. There was just nothing to find. Good work. I'll give you back full comments after the Yule break, but you did well."

Harry sat down more happy than frustrated.

She pointed to others who hadn't yet stood. Finally Madam Spurl came to Lavender.

"Miss Brown, I seem to have missed your assignment when I was reading through them."

Harry looked at her. She had stood before. Now she was caught. What would she do? Lie... Blame Harry...

"I didn't do one," she said.

Harry appreciated honesty.

"I see. You stood when I was talking to those who proposed a rune-based answer. Do you have a reason?"

"No. I don't."

"Well, at least you're honest. Detention with me the first Monday evening in January."

Lavender had sounded remorseful, but she glanced at Harry with a good deal of unhappiness. It might be something she would work past. It might sour into hatred.

Harry knew it was possible. His friends had told him.

Oh, well.

The last pair went then. Nott and Goyle proposed some test involving a glass of water, a spell from Madam Spurl's wand, and a recording of a shrieking wail. What in the world...

"No. Nothing. There wasn't a hag sacrificed near here to curse this place. Clever idea, gentlemen. A little too clever?

"I would remind your father, Mr. Nott, that slaying magical creatures to power a curse has been illegal for longer than I've been alive. And the family of the one who slays the beast also receives some of that curse, in perpetuity. You might test your blood for Curse of the Hag among others. Ask our Potions Master for details how. I'm fairly sure the Prince line was cursed by the ritual slaying of a vampire after all..."

Harry had to stop himself from laughing. Had she been serious when she implied that Snape was the product of a vampire curse? Amazing. How could anyone call her a toadstool?

"So we're done. There have been many, many good ideas presented here. I'm glad to see curiosity alive and well among the young. Perhaps some of you will join my field in the future. It's hard work, but the good kind. Now, I shouldn't tell you this, but I think some of the Hufflepuffs two years older than you have figured it out."

Fourth years? Not the seventh years?

"Really?" Hermione asked.

"I heard the idea only yesterday, but I think it'll turn out true. Finding out how it was set will take time, perhaps the rest of the school year. Dismantling it?" At this, she shrugged with an uncomfortable look.

"What is it?"

"You want me to tell you what I think the answer is? Well, you are the final class to turn in the assignment... So there's no problem with this getting out to the others. Fine."

Harry grinned. He still loved hearing about magic he didn't know. Thankfully they had a few really good teachers. Professor Flitwick mostly stuck to the book, but he threw in comments here and there that were new. Little tips, little variations in the spell or ways to use it in non-standard ways, as if they were all training for the dueling circuit someday.

And Madam Spurl didn't have a book at all so everything she said was something new.

"There's a bit of magic called a taboo. Wonderfully complicated, usually used for gruesome purposes, unfortunately. That's what they proposed, those Hufflepuffs. Most of those fourth-years worked on variations of the same idea. Such a Hufflepuff thing to do, share. Perhaps a family member or a book put one of them onto the idea, then one convinced the others. None of them cottoned onto the right trigger word yet, which is important to know for dismantling a localized taboo."

"Can you explain how it works, this taboo?" Hermione asked.

"A person saying a predefined word triggers the spell, but doesn't even have to cast any magic. Just saying the right word makes the thing work. As I said, it's complicated and powerful and devilish to unravel."

Yes, it sounded devilish. Someone had managed cursed a word...

"I'll keep searching. You get to be my age and you'll have patience. Hopefully, you'll still have curiosity. One without the other, they should load you into a coffin and burn you." She speared each of them with a look. "Class dismissed. Don't forget everything I'm trying to load into your skull during the break."

Harry packed up. He resolved to add taboos to his list of things to look up. He'd never come across the term before. Not that he was a Master of Defense or anything, but he had been through a number of good books on the subject.

He felt a tap on his shoulder.

Lavender Brown stood there when Harry turned around.

"Yes?" Harry asked. If she was going to have a tantrum, let her have it now.

"I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"I didn't think anyone would work so hard on it. I didn't think it would be that interesting."

Harry nodded. He had said it would be interesting to study. She just hadn't believed him. How could anyone not find some kind of magic to adore? His happened to be these kinds of spells, but he wondered what Lavender adored.

She was looking at him. She expected him to say something. Harry went for polite. "Well, maybe we can work on a project for a different class together."

She nodded. "Maybe."

Harry walked away. Girls were so strange.

X-X-X

Harry was calmer this Yule break. The day after Christmas, Harry woke up and made the journey to his summer suite where he practiced his spells. His mind wandered, but he kept himself relaxed. He knew what he would do for the summer and even had his tent ready. He tucked his wand away. He looked out a window. The sun was out and he couldn't see the trees at the edge of the great lawn swaying.

Harry smiled and went to collect his broom. While he had decided to hold off on trying out for Quidditch until maybe next year (he still thought himself a bit small), he did go flying on a nice day like today. There was snow on the ground, but he could cast a warming charm that would last forty-five minutes or better. The sun and lack of wind was more important.

He arrived outside to see a few others flying. Harry got into the air. Hedwig eventually arrived next to him. She had been teaching him dives, of course. She had some wicked ones, his crafty friend.

Back on the ground, Harry spoke to his owl for a few minutes before she flew off. He had tried to fly with her or visit her in the owlery every day of the break.

As he walked back to the castle thinking about lunch, his mind turned to that odd house elf Dobby and that plot that was supposed to be happening in the school. Harry was grateful it wasn't, of course, but one with curiosity couldn't always direct it very well.

What was supposed to be happening right now?

Harry ran up the stairs to the Tower and left his broom. On his way down, he decided to visit the house elves in the kitchen before he arrived at the Great Hall. They had been so kind over the last summer so he tried to repay it. They wanted nothing but a kind word or a bit of work to do. Harry didn't quite understand that, but he could at least oblige.

When he ate his lunch, Harry saw Hagrid at the Head Table. Harry waved. Later Harry might seek out Hagrid who would have a bit of a story to share. That man and his trips to the pub. He was also good for bits of Hogwarts lore, especially on troublemakers. Harry learned about centaurs and werewolves from Hagrid as well as a few bits on his father and his grandfather, who had frequently been to Hogwarts when James Potter got into enough trouble.

But he had his afternoon planned. He'd had to skip yesterday because of the holiday, but he'd get what he needed today. During the break, the library was on reduced hours, just open in the afternoons. Harry had not given up his efforts to discover more about the Potters. He'd finally asked the unpleasant Madam Pince about back numbers of the Prophet. They had the current copies. What about the old ones.

Silly. He should have asked much earlier. For the Hogwarts library had a little-used, locked room where they stored two centuries of fire-proofed copies of the Daily Prophet. (Why was it locked? Harry never did find out.) Harry had now gone back seventy years. He'd spent some more time pulling ink onto his fingers.

He settled into the room with his stack of notes and his references to old newspapers. He was writing what he learned and where he'd learned it from. He wanted one parchment not a stack of copies. Of course, he had learned the copying spell so he could keep photographs of interest.

He had the names of all his relatives along with their dates of death (and causes). He was the last Potter, but he probably had many distant relatives, wanted or otherwise. He had the names of his grandfather's friends in the political arena, especially the ones who eulogized him after his death. He had the dates of when the Potters had twice added more land to the estate or when they'd torn down the old cottages they'd rented out and built new ones for their tenants.

Harry was, it seemed, a landlord of a considerable number of houses. Perhaps those houses and those rents had collapsed, but it gave him one idea about the possible direction of his life.

Harry had also confirmed through a dozen articles over several decades the address of the Potter lands in Godric's Hollow in Wales.

The hardest bit, accomplished two days before Christmas, was finding a decent map so that he could find the town and the street. He didn't have a muggle train schedule with him, but he could work out how to get there via train. If not, the Knight Bus was an option, disorienting and nauseating as it was.

He settled in to dig deeper. He started leafing page by page, scanning the headlines for Godric's Hollow or Potter or the names of his grandfather's friends. His mind was only half on the paper. He was thinking about this land – and why he felt so drawn to go there. It was a little silly, after all, and that was why he didn't, and wouldn't, tell anyone about his long-considered plans.

What was he going to do there? All this effort for a spot of land.

Harry tried to put words to the why, to the longing.

There. He wanted to find something of his family. A ward stone. A ruin of a home. A broken China plate. Something.

All he had know were pictures in a paper. He wanted to see where some of them had been taken. He wanted to stand on this land.

Harry was happy enough with that, for now. He wanted to hold something of his family, to know that they had been real.

Harry's mind wandered as he unfolded another paper and began to scan it. Christmas, his mind returned to Christmas. Was that a magical holiday, too? Did wizards and witches share that with the non-magical or did they have their own religion? Were they Church of England or Church of Scotland or Church of Merlin? Yule break and Christmas feast and Easter break. A Halloween feast. What were the wizard holidays, if any?

Who did he even ask about that?

He shuffled through another paper. He paused when he saw the ads for wizard toys on the third page. Harry smiled. He wondered if he'd ever had any of these?

He had been happy with the gifts he sent and received. Harry had sent Ron and the twins chocolate frogs as the chocolate wasn't horrible to eat, Ron collected the cards, and the twins couldn't make trouble with chocolate, hopefully. Very pragmatic of him.

Neville and Hermione got different books; Neville's was a muggle book of word puzzles (recommended by a Ravenclaw named Lisa Turpin who was surprisingly chatty) and Hermione's was a book on how to maintain a magical library. There was a very useful spell in there to find a book on some desired topic. Harry used that spell when Madam Pince wasn't looking. If only it also worked on back numbers of the Daily Prophet...

Harry hoped that the book he gave to Neville might help him forget whatever he disliked about returning home. Harry could see, but he didn't think he was close enough a friend to actually ask. So he settled for helping in some way. Harry knew about unpleasant homes.

Hermione gave Harry a book on enchantments, his newest enthusiasm thanks to Madam Spurl. Neville had sent a book with animated pictures of famous adventurers along with short biographies. The young man really saw more than anyone credited him with. Harry hadn't spoken of these ambitions with anyone.

The Weasleys, including Ron, sent another sweater and more sweets. Harry planned to send a polite note of thanks with Hedwig. He'd need to sit down and write it tonight.

There were no mystery gifts this year for which Harry was a little thankful. He wondered what other possessions of his father might be floating around. Wands? Books he might have loaned out? Harry just didn't know what the traditions were.

Harry began another newspaper, paying about half a mind to the material. His mind wandered again. Harry was looking forward to classes resuming. He was excited by many of them. Transfiguration was about to start more animal-to-animal transfigurations, which seemed a little cruel but was interesting. Could it be used by an adventurer?

Charms was racing through spells and still touching on only half of the ones mentioned in the class text. Harry was trying to challenge himself to use the spells in unexpected ways. He liked to see what the true limits were. This year had a lot of domestic spells in it, cleaning spells of different types, whitening spells for the teeth. Harry had played with that whitening spells to clean worn Hogwarts flagstones. It did okay, but he'd felt exhausted afterwards.

Potions had remained tolerable. Some of the assigned potions had Harry confused, but they all worked, more or less. The Professor was better at calling out what might possibly go wrong, before they started chopping, mincing, crushing, or slicing.

The female Professor Flamel was still not assigned to a class. So how was she spending her time? Harry wondered if she had an invisibility cloak and stood in the back of every one of Snape's classes. Maybe it was the reason he was improved from the year before.

Harry found something wonderful on the front page of the next Prophet. He found the first wide perspective photograph of Charlus and Dorea Potter and Godric's Hall. Harry could see the whole things. It looked to be three stories, but no, it had some extra windows. It had to be at least five stories, but it was made to look a bit more modest.

He duplicated the photo and marked down the day and year of the Prophet that had supplied it. This one he might like to get from the newspaper office, a real copy.

Harry smiled. He was looking forward to the end of the year most of all. He was ready for an adventure. He appreciated a quiet school year, of course, but he was enjoying making plans for the summer. What would he find of Godric's Hall? What would it look like now so many years later, two wars later. Was it intact at all? Were the protections still working? Harry just had to hope he would find something.

The picture was lovely. The home was so inviting, light colored stone with white stone lintels over the broad, tall main windows. A dark roof, maybe slate? The forecourt was covered in crushed stone and there were trees on the grounds and possibly a set of gardens to the right side. It was a palace by Harry's standards.

How many Potters had lived in this place? How many had been born there? How many meals had they eaten here – and how much magic had they learned?

Harry had to caution himself. He could not find all the answers he was looking for. But if he found even some of them... It would be worth everything.

He thought of stopping for the afternoon. He had had a good haul. But there were two hours until the library closed and perhaps he'd find something even better. Harry picked up another copy and began to scan headlines and turn pages.

Because 'maybe' was the word of the day.

X-X-X

The day before the Hogwarts Express returned was one Harry wouldn't soon forget. Peeves left him alone, but he was assaulted by a different spirit entirely.

"Harry, my boy. I wonder if you could visit me in my office..."

Harry knew the face if not the voice. He hadn't known that this person had become a ghost, however. "Professor Dumbledore?"

"Now, please."

"Professor, you don't have an office."

"Of course I do..."

"The Headmaster's Office is Professor Flamel's now."

"Nicholas? I'm sure I would have remembered asking him to fill in. Harry, please, there is much we need to talk about."

Harry decided being stalked by both a poltergeist and an amnesiac ghost was very irritating.

"Professor, you died."

"Nonsense, my boy. I am as hale as I was at fifty."

Harry put his hand through the Professor's ghostly arm.

"Well, how did that happen?" the ghost asked and was silent a while.

Harry should have escaped then. He didn't.

"Maybe we should find Professor Flamel?" Harry wondered.

"In good time." The ghost scrunched up its face. "Actually, I will ask that you not inform Nicholas that I have returned."

"Why?"

"I returned for a reason. Unfinished business. Nicholas has his own worries. These matters I stayed for are my own..."

So why had he sought out Harry...

Stupid, troublemaking ghost. Harry was young, not stupid. The ghost was here bothering Harry because Harry was the unfinished business. Excellent! Had he been cursed with bad luck when he was a baby?

The first thing Harry would do after he got rid of this bit of oddness was find Professor Flamel. He was almost glad this ghost had told Harry what he didn't want to happen.

"Now, I wish to ensure you are well."

"Very, Professor. Why are you wondering?"

"I care about my students."

"And Professor Binns cares about his." Harry had to bite his lip.

"Exactly, Harry. Now is it almost summer?"

"We're in the dead of winter..."

"Ahh. I see. Well, for the summer, you'll do well to return home to your family."

When hell filled itself with the roller coasters from Alton Towers... "Of course."

"Such a sensible lad. Yes, yes, I had to make sure you were well. You are very important to our world, Harry."

"I see," Harry said, not seeing. "Do you remember about the Philosopher's Stone, Professor? I'm told you were killed trying to protect it."

"I am afraid I cannot comment. No one should know about or talk about it, I'm afraid. Your word, Harry."

"Certainly. Perhaps you'll enjoy visiting the other ghosts..." Or anyone or anything else. "I'm sure they can keep secrets."

"Ah, Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington. Yes, yes, I think his perspective might be quite useful indeed. There is still so much to do before my Next Great Adventure. Thank you, Harry."

And the ghost finally disappeared. It was less than forthcoming. Harry found he might have been very irritated if he'd had much to do with this man before his death. However, it was easier to 'see through' whatever this ghost was up to. He seemed not to exude the same aura of authority when he was pale as he was.

Harry tucked away his wand and walked to the door. He needed to find the Headmaster and rat out a certain opinionated ghost. Had Dumbledore always been this crazy? How had no one noticed? Or was it his death that had done this?

X-X-X

It was February and the grounds were so cold no one liked to be outside, not even Professor Sprout who held classes in the greenhouses. The Gryffindor Common Room was uncommonly full.

And someone – without naming any names, but a male, sixth year prefect with red hair and a fairly nasal voice – had let slip to Hermione about the Third Year Electives. Specifically on how they had to choose only two or three, not all of them.

Hermione was excitable on an average day, but she became impossible once there were even more choices opening up to her. Really impossible. Then when some of those possible choices were foreclosed by an artificial limit of two of three...

She was like magic had transfigured her hair as angry and excited and vengeful as she was. A Gorgon of Learning or something, able to petrify anyone with a glance of wrath.

"She'll calm down," Ron said.

"You think?"

"No. Not for a while. And nothing I say or you say will help."

That much was true. She got these intense bursts of will. She had to do something and couldn't help herself.

Her kind of magic was very different from Ron's. And both of them were different from Harry. He didn't know the right terms to use, but he thought he was right.

Take Ron. Harry fully liked Ron when he was at home on a long-used piece of land surrounded by his family, but at school he could flip and flop between sour and asleep. He had some family here, but it wasn't enough for him. He really did need to be closer to home _and_ family. He just didn't realize it. Hogwarts wasn't doing him many favors.

How to tell someone that? Harry didn't know how to put that supposition into words Ron might hear. Whatever Harry said, Ron would just hear 'you're a failure.' It wasn't true. He just needed to be closer to a particular fragment of land. Or that was Harry's guess as of now.

Hermione was often about order, but there were things that could trump order in her book. Like curiosity and getting to the very bottom of a puzzle. 'Leave no stone unturned' should have been Hermione's motto.

Harry didn't know if his observations had any ties to real things in magic. He thought they must. Some people just had different ways of handling magic. No people he knew in Surrey were quite so templated, so predictable.

Weren't some wands supposedly good for charms or protection spells or transfiguration? Maybe some magic could be like that.

Yes. Ron's magic seemed very tuned to family and defense of his family. The twins' toward wildness or, Harry almost hated the word now, chaos.

Hermione seemed to share what Percy had, for order. If she wasn't on a curiosity kick. Her magic fought her a little, which might explain the hair, being pulled in several directions at once.

Harry wondered if his was tuned for mysteries or adventure. Maybe for family he didn't have. Maybe for helping people. He hoped he could keep himself from the worst forms of trouble, but how could he until he knew what his magic wanted.

Harry noted that Neville was beginning to look unhappy, as he did before every break. It was February, though, and there were months before classes ended. What bothered him so? Not even their hours in the greenhouses were helping now.

Harry was finished with all the Daily Prophets. He'd picked up many things, especially items that never seemed to make it into books, things like traditions. He hoped he could find someone to tutor him on the last of those. It was all so confusing.

Not everything made it into a book. But Harry would never say that in front of Hermione.

The problem that day came as Hermione was finally calming down about the electives. She still had months to consider her three options. (She wouldn't have dreamed of only taking two extra classes, of course.)

Draco Malfoy had to attempt to irritate Harry again in the hallway before Madam Spurl's class.

"I hear she's not staying next year. And I can tell you like her."

"You don't think she was a good teacher?"

"We have better in Slytherin."

"You have private classes?" Hermione demanded.

"Of course we do. Don't you?" Draco asked, knowing the answer.

That started some kind of meltdown. Harry pushed Hermione over to Neville and Parvati to get her somewhere she wouldn't be seen.

Extra classes! Things she couldn't know because of the house she was in! Harry could almost read her mind by looking at her face.

"Your teachers share anything useful, Malfoy? Or is it special lessons on brewing hair tonics?" He asked loudly, trying to calm Hermione.

"Ridiculous. As if a Slytherin would brew his own hair tonics. No. There are private stores for that."

"So what do you learn?" Harry asked.

"Banking. Politics. Dueling. Our dueling master would paste that oversized garden gnome to the wall..."

"So the family room in Slytherin is still being used for extra classes," Madam Spurl said from the open classroom door. Harry hadn't seen it open, or heard it.

Malfoy paled.

So that said a lot about the quality of these other teachers. More Malfoy-bragging. Harry should use that word in conversation.

"Get inside and stop boasting, Mr. Malfoy. As for the rest of you, all the houses used to have interesting optional classes, but certain headmasters allowed them to lapse for whatever reasons. I don't know that the Flamels will have the influence to restart things. They're brilliant, but looked down upon as foreign and French."

That was all she said about that, though she had looked at Malfoy when she said 'foreign and French.' Harry could see that Hermione had taken in every word.

That day, Madam Spurl taught them about curses that could be borne by animals, which she suspected was how a wizard had long ago created lycanthropy, a curse on a guardian wolf that had gone horribly wrong.

These days some estates used cursed birds to act as look-outs. "Though I hear that the Malfoys are no longer able to curse their peacocks. Lost the spell..."

"That's not true," Malfoy said.

"Or are so underpowered they can't cast it."

"That is not true!"

"I see. I was misinformed. Do the Notts still curse their sparrows?"

"Aye, we do," Nott said.

"Enough of that. Fools to trust your security to anything cursed. That's why cursebreakers exist... Well, you will do as you will. But if someone paid me to gain access to Nott lands, I wouldn't struggle to add to my fortune, young master."

Nott looked disturbed. Harry thought it was an improvement to his usual appearance.

She stared at everyone in the class for most of a minute. She did like to creep them out. "I should let you know that you do not have to do another round of assignments for the year project on the Defense Professor curse."

"What?" Hermione asked, as if she were being deprived.

"No need. I have verified the precise cause of the curse. I have already awarded fifty points to Hufflepuff for their most excellent idea."

"What was it?" Malfoy asked. "Cursing a word, was that it?"

Madam Spurl regarded Malfoy for a little while before she smiled. As if she expected that Malfoy was planning to do something even more devious, assuming he had an imagination.

"Yes. It was, as predicted by some students, a taboo on a word. No student guessed the correct word, but I've been tinkering."

"You know the word?" Hermione asked.

"I do. It's one most of you use every day, which extends the taboo and strengthens the curse. Cleverly done."

"What word?" Harry asked.

"Everyone take out some parchment. Write your name and the word you think it is. It's plenty common at Hogwarts. Anyone who gets it correct gets five points added to his or her final exam score."

Harry got his quill out, wrote down his name, then found himself stumped. What word could it be? A common one... Hogwarts? No. The name of a spell? It wouldn't be a person's name, not if the spell had lasted for decades. Harry didn't like it but he wrote down Hogwarts. It wouldn't be right.

Madam Spurl stood at the front of the class and flipped through the parchments. "Interesting. Dismissed."

Harry packed up and left quickly, hopefully getting far ahead of Hermione.

"We are starting optional classes in Gryffindor."

Harry had no luck today. She had caught up.

"And you're going to help me, Harry," Hermione said.

Harry just nodded. She wasn't going to forget this or let the matter die down. She was set and Hermione was about impossible to distract. Damn that Malfoy and his mouth.

"What do you want to learn?" Harry asked.

"Everything." Her voice had a hunger in it. "But I'll start with politics. That sun-bleached little stoat... I'll see him. We have to find the Gryffindor family room so we can have classes there."

"Don't we need a teacher, too?"

"Yes. You're right, Harry. We'll need a teacher."

X-X-X

Hermione, at least, kept busy working on her new passion. The seventh year prefect showed everyone the family room so that was an easy part. It was still attached to the tower, just rarely used.

A few days later, Headmaster Flamel got up at lunch and addressed the students.

"Good news. Madam Spurl has been kind enough to do some work above and beyond the call of her position. The taboo on the Defense professorship is broken as of this morning."

He stared outward until the students began to clap.

"We have not disseminated what word was the trigger until now because we needed to break the taboo first, which would have been harder if everyone had been using it, discussing it, or gossiping about it. Now I can announce the taboo was tied to the word 'Professor,' and no one guessed it in the exercise Madam Spurl conducted in her many classes. My gratitude to her for her efforts. This is a curse that has plagued the school for decades."

Professor Flamel stared again. This time, everyone gave Madam Spurl a warmer round of applause.

As the noise died down someone shouted, "Who broke it?" Harry couldn't tell who had asked the question.

"I did, of course. Enjoy your lunch. Roast beef sandwiches, I believe. With dilled pickles. Don't tell my wife, but it's among my favorite foods."

He broke it. But Madam Spurl had made it sound monstrously difficult... Harry remembered. Professor Flamel was more than just an alchemist. His wife sat beside him and slapped his hand when he reached for extra pickles.

Hermione was excited for about five minutes before she remembered the lessons she was trying to organize. She got the attention of a sixth year student and tried to figure out what her parents might be able to teach to current Hogwarts students.

Harry didn't think it sounded too bad: the parents owned an orchard and pressed their own cider. But Hermione was dead set on hearing about the permits they had to file and how they organized their business. Harry would rather learn about cider than business paperwork.

He didn't say that to Hermione. Nor did Ron or Neville or anyone else.

X-X-X

It was the end of May and, as the gossip had suggested, Madam Spurl announced she was moving on. Harry had hoped she would stay. Malfoy, annoying as he was, did have good sources.

"Why are you leaving?" Neville of all people asked. Maybe she had gotten through to him.

"There's a new lead on the Chamber of Blood Mages at Chichen Itza. I'm going to be there when we open that place up. The search for it has taken forty-three cursebreakers that we know of. The great challenge in the field right now, at least since the Valley of the Kings gave up her secrets."

She had to go. Harry understood.

He was mulling things over for the rest of class.

As soon as she said, "Dismissed," Harry didn't waste any more time. He sought her out and asked when she would be in her office.

"Why not now?"

She showed Harry to a chair and sat across from him.

"I can see that you love the little stories I tell. So are you a historian, a traveler, a cursebreaker?"

"I don't know."

"Course you don't. Too young. But you answered honestly. What do you think you might be?"

"I'd rather travel or break curses than read books."

"So you're beginning to know your mind. Good. Have you found a book on the Floating Castle?"

"No."

Madam Spurl pushed over a pen, a biro you could buy in a normal shop, and scrap paper. Made out of wood. "Write it down before your eyes pop from your head."

Harry did.

"I wasn't one of the ones to find it. I was brought in to bring it down. The invisibility matrix they had going was failing and it had been long abandoned, by people at least. Quite a few colonies of birds had taken up residence. Smelly place when I got there, smelled like...well, you can imagine. The trouble began when an airliner smacked into it and sheared off part of a wing..."

Harry listened to everything she had to say. He wrote plenty of notes on things to look up later, also the names of some people she had mentioned who might also be willing to talk adventuring. She didn't seem to like many people, but she knew everyone.

Harry now had more things to look into. Maybe the following summer? This coming one was already planned to some extent, assuming he found anything in Godric's Hollow. If it was a bust, a total bust, what might he do then?

X-X-X

Harry was called to Professor Flamel's office at the start of June. He'd been expecting a summons, but was surprised it had taken the entire school year. While witches and wizards had been figuratively sieging Hogwarts to get a little time with Nicholas Flamel, who had been reclusive for most of the last quarter-millenium, Harry had thought the man had more to ask Harry or tell him.

Harry walked up the stairs to the open door.

"Come in. Take a gander. I'll be with you in a moment. Perenelle will be joining us."

Harry looked at the old professor behind his desk. Harry could only make out the one trait about him: old. Harry did not know how the Professor did that.

He looked around the room after he was certain he wasn't going to unravel the Headmaster's secrets. It was Harry's first time in this office. When he'd gone looking for the Headmaster concerning a certain ghost, the man had been in the Great Hall.

Harry frowned. Dumbledore was still plaguing Harry with all varieties of nonsensical advice. His latest? Harry should sign up for divination for his electives. 'It is very helpful for young men like yourself.' Whatever that meant.

In the office, there were walls of books and dozens of animated portraits of old men and a few old women. There was some kind of bony head, taller than Harry, on the wall that might have taken the place of a few portraits. It had fangs longer than Harry's forearm.

Another door opened and the Headmaster's wife walked in. She sat down in a chair, as much a mystery as ever, the Professor who taught no classes and yet seemed responsible for many other teachers doing much better.

"If you're ready, Harry. You can get another look after we finish." Headmaster Flamel pointed to a comfortable chair.

"You were looking at our trophy," Professor Flamel said.

She pointed to the bones on the wall, the skull of some serpent. Or a dragon? Those fangs really drew the eye.

"We'd thought to stuff the basilisk skull, but the skin was too useful, so those are just the bones," Headmaster Flamel said. "The fangs are cleared of the poison, of course. Penny is working on a range of potions that haven't been brewed in several hundred years. Surprisingly few of them are much use these days. People made better replacement options..."

"Where did you find the, um, basilisk?" Harry had read about them and knew nothing positive about them. Vicious, deadly, huge, long-lived, a glance of the eyes induced death, a drop of the venom induced death – so basically, slithering death.

"All too close. Deep under this school actually..."

Under the school? Harry had nearly been under the school that day over the summer. "That tunnel?"

"Deeper than your footprints made it. No worries, Mr. Potter."

Still. "A basilisk."

"It deserves the place of honor, rather than having a portrait of Albus Dumbledore to ask irritating questions."

Harry hadn't know the late Headmaster at all from his first year at Hogwarts, but he'd more than made up for it this year with the man's ghost. Pesty, irritating, given to suggestions and partial lies, and a general nuisance. Of course, he hid from most everyone save for Harry.

"Have you discovered where his ghost resides?" Harry asked.

"I've caught the ghost chatting with his own portrait, which is in this suite's second bathroom behind a locked door. The nerve of him...," the female Professor Flamel said.

"Now, Pearl, that's enough in front of young ears..."

"Penny? Pearl? That's enough of that. Or should I call you Nicky?"

"No."

She looked back to Harry. "The ghost also irritates Professors McGonagall and Snape. Floats in, rattles off some suggestions or orders, floats away. They don't listen to him. Nor should you. And don't go looking for that second bathroom, Mr. Potter. It's also where we put the basilisk eyes and our stock of mandrake restorative. I'll need to devise a new trap to use those in..."

Harry smiled, totally confused. But he wasn't going hunting for the ghost of Dumbledore.

"Is there any way to keep him from bothering people, that ghost?" Harry asked.

"Best way is to convince him to leave. I've had the damnedest time tracking him," Headmaster Flamel said. "It's obvious he's hiding from me, taken to living in the sewer pipes rather than listen to sense. I should have seen this stubbornness and wrong-headedness about him when he was alive and young. My fault entirely, I apologize for helping him become what he did."

No one ever apologized to Harry. Rather than shrug this off, Harry said, "You don't need to apologize for him."

After all, it was Dumbledore causing the problems from beyond the grave.

"So what will you do this summer, Mr. Potter?"

More chit-chat. Harry wondered what these Professors Flamel really did want. He appreciated knowing about the basilisk. Perhaps that was what Dobby had been so concerned about?

Best to stop wondering and answer the question. "I discovered where my family estates were, in Wales. Best I can tell I own the land, but there are no intact structures on it. The Daily Prophet reported a fire there before I was born. I was going to camp out and see what was left. Clear it out perhaps, think about if I'd like to rebuild."

"An excellent idea," Perenelle Flamel said. "A home is a fine thing to invest gold and time into..."

"Yes, yes, I agree," the Headmaster said. "Now, one caution. Most wizards, when restoring or rebuilding a structure like I imagine your family had, they will hire people to help them. Goblins to do wards and the like. Wizards to set the structure. Or dwarves. I do not recommend this."

"No?" Harry had had that idea from listening to the conversations among various Slytherins who all seemed to live in manors, detest goblins, and yet still hire them for security work. Goblins did the wards, period.

"If you rebuild, figure out how to do it yourself, all of the critical parts. Raising walls is easy with magic, even stone walls. Use the old stones, if you can, generations of your family being there will make them better than raw stone for holding wards."

"Why?"

"It's deep theory in warding. If you get that far into your studies, you'll know why. It's a classic tenet."

Harry nodded. He hadn't been told he couldn't know. He'd been told to go and find out for himself through diligence. Harry rather liked that answer, actually.

"Raising your wards is the most critical part. Bring up temporary protections on your property, set your wards, build your structure to protect them. That's the classic way. There are other and better ways."

"Yes, sir." Advice partnered with a puzzle. As it always was.

"Once the wards, however you raise them, are complete and set, then you can invite people to visit, not before. Or install the plumbing or the electrics, whatever non-magical elements you prefer."

"Thank you for the idea. That's not commonly done now, is it? Not based on what I've heard here."

"No. It's not common at all. Perenelle and I learned a dear lesson, for we lost one of our homes and three of our children that way. From wards we purchased from a reputable spell-layer. Not so, for our secrets were known to him. Someone else outpaid us for his loyalty, you see. Treachery need only happen once to ruin everything. It is a hard lesson, so I make a point to pass it on when the chance arises."

He hadn't even wondered if these two had children. Of course they had. And a mistake had ruined everything for them, even if it was hundreds of years in the past. They didn't, and wouldn't, forget.

"Yes, sir," Harry said. "Thank you for telling me."

The room was quiet for a while.

The Headmaster caught his wife's eye, then looked to Harry. Here it came. "Now, Mr. Potter, we have been trying to work out a puzzle for much of the year."

A puzzle... This time Harry had nothing to hide. At least he didn't think so. "Yes, sir?"

"We have an animagus on staff."

"Professor McGonagall?"

"Precisely. But the animagus wards have been pinging on other people. We rounded up several others who ventured onto the Hogwarts grounds or into the castle. One was a reporter. I won't tell you what we did with her, let's just say that she will never write a column again accusing me of being a vampire who had evolved to survive the daylight."

Harry laughed. He had read plenty of Daily Prophets, but none more recent than 1981. He supposed he should find out who this columnist was, or had been.

"Some were parents coming in secret to visit their children who are students here, they got stern warnings. The last was a rat living – living, I tell you – in Gryffindor Tower, been there for years it turned out, first with one student then his younger brother..."

"You don't mean Ron Weasley's rat, Scabbers?" Harry asked. He still remember how Ron whinged for days, weeks, about his rat.

Which wasn't actually a rat.

Harry shivered. He lived in the same room with Ron, in the same room as that 'rat.'

"I do. Though he's actually a man called Peter Pettigrew, who was a student alongside your parents, Mr. Potter."

"He was?"

"He was also believed dead. The man who was accused of killing him has been tried, finally, after a decade of his being in prison without a trial. He has been released, since he was innocent of all accusations."

"Good," Harry said. A decade of a man's life lost. Harry almost knew what that felt like. Surrey was something like prison, or at least the corner of it called Privet Drive.

"Now the reason we mention this, is that he swore the oaths to be your godfather..."

What did that mean? _Don't panic._ A godfather? Harry had never come across the term... No. He had, in the back numbers of the Prophet. A few times he'd seen notices of a godfather or a godmother.

Don't freeze. _Keep asking questions._ Keep them talking. What did that mean...

"And what does a godfather do in the wizarding world?" Harry finally asked.

"Just what you might imagine. Take care of children when their parents are unable..."

Well, Harry was now capable of doing that on his own.

"So he's my guardian now?"

"Well, that may come to pass. He's currently in the hospital. The prison these English have is no kind or gentle place. He'll need much care before he's more than a shadow of a person. It was my duty to tell this to you."

Harry nodded. He tried to piece together what he'd been told and what he hadn't. "And why did finding Ron's rat free my godfather?"

"Ah, yes. All the crimes laid at Sirius Black's feet were actually committed by this Mr. Pettigrew."

All of them? "And Mr. Black, you said, was in prison a decade and no one knew this?"

The Headmaster looked unhappy. "Yes, you are right to be skeptical. It seems impossible. It likely is impossible. But governments change and records are lost or destroyed. Yes, it was likely an intentional act."

"Who did it?"

"That may never be known – or why."

"But..."

"Black comes from a dangerous family, perhaps it was considered a way to defang them by misplacing the heir in a hellish prison. He has come into money, a considerable amount, since his imprisonment. This may have been an attempt to keep him from inheriting the Black fortune. Or an attempt to punish him for fighting against Voldemort or, alternately, for abandoning his family. It may also have been an effort to keep him from being your godfather. Or to further attack the Potter family by attacking one named as a godfather to a Potter. Or any combination of these..."

"Oh," Harry said. Maybe he needed to take those secret politics classes Malfoy had blabbed about that one day.

"Yes. It's confusing for all of us."

"Can I meet him?" Harry asked.

"He has asked to meet you. Perhaps you might sneak out – again, as you did many times over the summer – this weekend and make your way to St. Mungo's. That's the hospital they plunked into one of the busiest spots in London. Not a lick of sense in any of these people."

"You don't mind me sneaking out?"

"I mind people who follow stupid rules without question. I mind people who learn exactly as much information as will be on the examination, but not one item more. I mind people who are incurious. I do not mind rule-breakers who practice some subtlety, Mr. Potter."

Harry smiled. He would visit Sirius Black as soon as he could. Harry waited for his dismissal which was not yet forthcoming. The two professors looked at each other and seemed able to communicate without speaking. Interesting.

"One last thing, I understand you found a diary last summer."

At Ron's house. "Yes, sir."

"Well, I have some news about that..."

"You, sir?" If there was news, wouldn't it come from Mr. Weasley?

"Who do you think helped these English set up their Department of Mysteries? I remain on the rolls of Honored Masters. I still collect the gossip."

Harry nodded.

"The diary was enchanted."

"Yes, sir. Mr. Weasley said so."

"Good. So you paid attention to Madam Spurl's lectures this year?"

"Of course. She's the best teacher we've had."

"Well, she's not really a teacher and we've had some complaints... But, between you and me, she is the best living curse breaker we know. Not many of them live to one hundred, let alone one hundred seventy-five. Anyway, that diary led my former colleagues to begin tracking a number of other enchantments – and also to confirm a few suspicions. You-Know-Who, a ridiculous appellation, is not yet dead though the appropriate authorities _now_ know why. But he is in spirit form, though we have reason to doubt he can be dispelled at this point."

Harry shrugged. It was interesting and overwhelming. "Why tell me?"

"He is fixated on you, Mr. Potter. He is confirmed to have possessed Professor Quirrel when he attacked you."

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Harry knew this. He'd heard some of this before. He'd just not had anyone tell him to his face. "Yes, sir."

"You deal with surprise well, Mr. Potter."

"I am trying to train myself, sir."

"Very sensible," Perenelle Flamel said. "Fear can be quite noxious when it runs and runs. You're doing well."

Harry looked from her to her husband. He was ready to hear more. He nodded.

"This spirit will eventually manage to regain a body. Perhaps not this year or this decade. But I give you this warning so you will be ready. He is plotting at all times, trying everything he can. He will not give you an advantage if he can help it. He will trick you, trap you, and try to destroy you."

Professor Flamel did not believe in gentle illusions.

Harry found he appreciated this. He had fought Voldemort several times. He might fight him several more. He would try to be ready. But it was reassuring to have a few people who were willing to help him, like Mr. Weasley, like these Professors. Maybe even Sirius Black?

"The experts in the Ministry are continuing their hunt for these...enchantments. There's no way to know how long the hunt will take. But so long as you are ready..."

"I will start." Or continue. He was much better with his spells, the Sunfire and the Fulmenifer and that cutter Diviso.

"I expect I shall return here with Perenelle next year. I managed to bog the Ministry down in pettiness, with a dozen vying to become the next Headmaster. All of them are expending favors and paying out bribes they cannot afford, perhaps it shall ruin a few of those monsters. In any event, I do not expect to remain past next year, Mr. Potter. You may well need to find a more secure place for your summers."

"Yes, sir."

Perenelle Flamel beamed at Harry. "See, he is growing. He didn't volunteer one bit of information, Nick. You're getting clever, Mr. Potter. Congratulations – and don't stop growing."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"A charmer. What a charmer! Perhaps the girls won't eat this one alive. Some families know well how to do that. Those Prewitts who died out. Be ready, Mr. Potter. This spirit isn't the only dangerous thing coming for you – and some of the girls will even look quite beautiful as they eat your heart."

Really?

"Don't listen to her, well, not too much. She likes scaring the young, especially the young men. Vicious creature, don't know why I kept her for coming on seven hundred years. One of these days, I'll have to put you aside."

"Maybe I shall lay your decrepit self aside, Nicky. Find me a young one, make me feel youthful again."

The Headmaster roared with laughter. "You weren't youthful when I took you to wife. Old crone from the moment of birth, I swear it."

"Do you?" she asked, sounding as dangerous as that basilisk skull looked.

Harry glanced eagerly at the door for so many reasons.

X-X-X

Harry's mind was stuck on thoughts of You-Know-Who and ghosts who gave advice, but most of all on London and a hospital he'd never visited and a godfather he couldn't remember. Hermione's voice, however, was demanding that all the Gryffindors she could see should go into the family room for a private class. "Gryffindors only."

Percy Weasley was her partner in crime in this. After all, Percy had arranged for his own father to speak.

Harry went along. He liked Mr. Weasley well enough and he could think of London if the class was tedious.

The nervous man stood at the front of the room as Harry found a seat near the back. He earned himself a glare from Hermione who was seated in the front row. Harry wasn't going to sleep, of course.

"Good, good. A lot of you turned up, even all of my own children. I didn't know there was so much interest in the Ministry inside Gryffindor. I expect my son Bill will draw a bigger crowd when he comes back some day to talk about the life of a cursebreaker..."

Now Harry promised himself he would attend that class.

"We're underrepresented in the Ministry as a House, you see. I know a few Aurors, magical police, and a few members of the Wizengamot. Few others. It's not exciting enough to stamp papers to start a new Floo or negotiate a treaty with the Dutch on the thickness of imported cauldrons, perhaps? Well, let me tell you about the work I do for a few minutes before we get to questions. My brief was to tell you things about the Ministry that you are unlikely to read in a book or hear about from school gossip. Well, I know a few things. I even wrote myself some notes..." He smiled.

Harry smiled back and the rest of the room seemed pleased. This wouldn't be some dry talk given in monotone by a ghost.

"While I do have an office in the Ministry where I collect reports about magical items turning up in muggle hands, most of my time is spent in the field. I find these enchanted items, undo whatever damage they have caused, and issue fines or recommend prison sentences. Now I don't have the greatest rapport with the Wizengamot. Anything to do with muggles draws little sympathy there, but I enjoy the work. I protect people. I stop malicious enchantments from harming people who are defenseless against them. I suppose I am rather excitable about the work I do, but it is as noble a job as there is inside the Ministry."

Which said quite a lot for the Ministry or at least Mr. Weasley's view of it.

Harry found himself very interested indeed in what Mr. Weasley had to say. Not that he saw himself working for the Ministry. He could read between the lines of what Mr. Weasley said. The Ministry disapproved of Mr. Weasley's work even as it paid him to do it.

Harry wondered if he could convince Mr. Weasley to speak more on that during questions. If not, perhaps when Harry visited Ron in the future.

The more Mr. Weasley talked about his work, and the overall purpose of the Ministry, the more Harry realized he had underestimated the man. No wonder his son had become a cursebreaker. Mr. Weasley might be the most experienced person in curses and enchantments outside Gringotts or the independent cursebreakers. This Bill, his oldest son, must have had quite an education at his father's side.

Harry hadn't talked to Ron's dad much when he stayed at the Burrow, save for that day when he handed in that very troublesome diary. That had been a mistake. If he had the chance in the future, Harry would chat with Mr. Weasley.

Hermione had picked their first teacher well. The students in the room were waking up to quite a bit about their world even as Mr. Weasley said nothing overtly disparaging about the Ministry. He just hinted, alluded, and told little stories that were at odds with how the world was supposed to work.

Harry stood for questions. Mr. Weasley called on him first. Perhaps being famous, and a former Weasley houseguest, was good for something.

"Thank you, Mr. Weasley. That was fascinating. But I suppose if I were in your position, I would become very discouraged and unhappy if my superiors did not support the work I did. Can you explain why you stay and even recommend the job to students?"

Mr. Weasley smiled. Perhaps he was glad someone had learned the lesson he had really come to teach. "It's complicated, Harry. My work is called for in various international treaties and several Wizengamot laws and precedents. You're right that the Wizengamot doesn't punish those who break these treaties and laws. The harder I work, in fact, the more gets carved out of my budget. Starvation method, I'm told it's called. That might be my fault. I'm hardly a politician to go begging or negotiate the release of Lord Cruelsmile so I might get to add another staffer to my office in the next year."

So that was the cost of honesty, Harry decided.

No, the Ministry was no place for him. But he couldn't ignore it. In fact, it had to be something he would begin to study. If the Slytherins had their alumni down in the dungeons giving classes on how to get what they wanted, and the Gryffindors had almost no representation inside the Ministry, then how...

"Follow up?" Harry asked.

Mr. Weasley nodded.

"If we cannot condone what your Lord Cruelsmile does _nor_ take his bribes, what do you suggest we do?"

"I may have painted an overly dire picture, Harry. Not every department is so poorly regarded. But we do not cooperate. Each department protects itself from the others they regard as outsiders. Some of that is the Hufflepuff domination of some entire floors of the Ministry. To be clear, they cooperate with each other, but not with departments like mine. They also have little representation in the Wizengamot to help make changes. We're all at war with everyone else. Not fun..."

Harry was puzzling over this. It sounded impossible to resolve.

Someone else stood. "So, you recommend some kind of pact? A cooperation pact between the few Gryffindors and the many Hufflepuffs?"

That was Percy Weasley's voice. He sounded positively shocked to have heard his father speak like this. Wise and sneaky and, well, smart.

Mr. Weasley had probably spent his entire life being underestimated, even among his own children.

"I doubt I could _say_ such a thing, as a department head of the Ministry. However, I suppose you can see how useful it might be with honest people finding the violators and stern people hearing those trials. Such a pact, however much I cannot propose it, would make it hard for a Lord Cruelsmile to get his way or buy it or bully it. Just a thought, an experiment of the mind."

And that was his plan along with his admission he wasn't the person to make it happen. He was brutally honest even with himself.

Mr. Weasley smiled before he pointed at Eliza Danvers, a seventh year, who asked about positions in International Cooperation. To Harry it sounded like she might just be willing to take one for Team Gryffindor.

Not one student left early. Not one student opened a book or chatted with a neighbor. Mr. Weasley had the attention of each of them.

Harry thanked Mr. Weasley after. He said he hoped Mr. Weasley might teach another class the following year.

"Perhaps. If word doesn't leak out about this one and get me fired."

Harry would have to have a word with some people. It looked like the twins already were.

Harry also thanked Hermione.

She was almost floating. "That was wonderful. But it sounds so dreadful. I had thought...the books had said... But it couldn't really be like that, could it? The Ministry...is supposed to be..."

Crashing back to the ground of reality was never fun. Harry stayed with her as she talked herself into a variety of positions, trying to reconcile them all.

X-X-X

Harry ate his breakfast on Saturday morning. He explained that he was going outside to Hermione, Ron, and Neville, which was true. He hinted that he was trying to avoid Oliver Wood, the sixth year who captained the house Quidditch team. Somehow the news that Harry liked to fly, and often did, had finally reached his ears.

Wood was trying to pressure Harry into joining the Quidditch team for next year. Harry's friends all smiled, but put odds on Oliver winning. Harry was too nice, at least as far as they knew. There was a benefit to being underestimated, as Mr. Weasley had just shown and as very few people actually seemed to recognize.

Harry went outside and put his cloak on. He walked to the village and flooed from the pub to the hospital, St. Mungo's.

Harry avoided the Welcome Witch who was busy with a family where the young boys seemed to have swapped a leg with each other. The bigger boy had one very short leg. The small boy had one very long leg. Harry decided not to ask.

He walked to the fourth floor. He'd been told the name of the ward where his godfather was. He found himself moving slowly. He wanted to meet Sirius Black, but he was also scared.

What if Sirius was worse than 'Uncle' Vernon? A bit mad, a bit cruel, a bit skilled with a wand. At least Vernon hadn't a drop of magic.

He continued up the stairs. There was only one way forward.

Harry found Sirius asleep. He was the only person in the ward so it had to be him.

Harry settled into a chair and waited. He was trying to think of what he might say. Or what questions he might be asked by Mr. Black.

Harry wanted to know this person, but he thought his motives were a bit murky. He wanted to know Mr. Black so he could know his family. He'd barely gotten anyone at Hogwarts to talk about James Potter or Lily Evans. He'd learned more from back numbers of the Daily Prophet.

"James?" a voice asked.

It was Mr. Black. He sounded concerned and woozy.

Harry stood up. "I'm Harry. I'm your godson."

The man in the bed brightened and smiled, like an innocent babe upon first waking. "Harry. Yes, Harry."

Harry smiled, too. Suddenly he wasn't quite so nervous about what to say or what to answer. That would take care of itself.

"This isn't a dream, is it? You're here. I'm here. In London?"

"Yes, Mr. Black..."

"Ahh, not a dream. I'd never call myself Mr. Black. You should call me Sirius. Better, call me Padfoot."

"Padfoot?" Harry asked.

"Nickname your father favored. Should I tell you about him, is that what a godfather does?"

"I don't know," Harry said, "but I'd like to hear about him."

"Pull that chair over here. Before the assistant healer catches us. I think she's half dragon at least. Maybe three-quarters."

Harry laughed. And the world changed again.

"First, tell me about your Hogwarts. Do you play Quidditch? Do you have a favorite class?"

X-X-X

This year Harry was leaving with the other students. He was still ducking Oliver Wood who had made it something of a quest to bully Harry onto the Quidditch team. Harry was considering wearing his invisibility cloak for part of the journey... Perhaps not. Best not to let that secret get out.

He was thinking of how to find the train in London that would take him to Wales. The Hogwarts library contained nothing about trains not named the Hogwarts Express. Harry stopped walking when he saw Draco Malfoy's much older twin, or perhaps his father, arguing with Headmaster Flamel just outside the main doors of Hogwarts Castle.

"...resign your temporary post now, Flamel."

Harry kept moving so he wouldn't get stepped on, but he paused before he got to the carriages and turned around. He wanted to see what this turned into, damn his curiosity. Everyone else seemed to ignore it, especially the Slytherins.

"I have no great desire to serve as the Headmaster. I sat next to Perenelle when she served sixteen years at Beauxbatons as Headmistress. I myself founded the Franklin School in America, not that it was named after Franklin at that time. I have served as a governor of Durmstrang under one of its more progressive Highmasters. If you should find someone with better credentials than my wife and me, I will turn over the office at once. But you can't. Dregs are what you offer..."

"How dare you, you doddery clod of dust."

"Go suck on your mother's teat, small-child. Your plots are as transparent as the filled-and-wetted-diapers you probably still wear, piss boy." He was enjoying himself, smiling and nodding at the passing students while dishing his insults.

Malfoy was not amused. "You are a Frenchman and you are not qualified to serve as the Headmaster of Britain's most lauded school..."

"Is Malfoy not a French name, I wonder? A strange criticism from a man who eyes the Minister's seat for himself or at least someone he pushes into it."

Malfoy drew a wand from his cane.

Harry took a step back.

"Did you ever join the dueling circuit? I don't remember reading of any wins for a Malfoy...," Flamel asked.

"I learned to fight, not duel."

"Yes, yes, I remember something about that, black robes and bone white masks, very droll. Well, I can't risk the children being hurt by you, one known little for caring about those you damage."

"So you concede?"

"I find you repugnant."

"The children will suffer..."

"Not while I'm here. Adults fight the battles while children learn, that's my law, not some other permutation you might favor. So we'll try something else."

Flamel did not draw his wand. He just stared at Malfoy.

Malfoy snapped his own wand without seeming to realize it.

"I think you've rendered great insult to Hogwarts, haven't you?" Flamel asked.

"Yes."

Harry stepped around so he could look at Malfoy's eyes. They weren't glazed over, so not Imperius. But he no longer acted like himself.

"I think you should apologize in a substantive manner. Sell all your house-elves to the school for a knut."

"Yes."

Harry watched the ceremony of sale. It was simple and brutal. Three lives changed hands in less time than it took Harry to find and open a thick book.

"You did much damage to our community of witches and wizards in the last war. You claim to be a philanthropist, but everyone knows you benefit from your own donations. So, we shall make you a real philanthropist. Donate four hundred thousand galleons to Widow Grey's Hospital Fund, with the stipulation that St. Mungo's be relocated outside of London. Hogsmeade or Godric's Hollow or even Ottery St. Catchpole. So long as one can apparate there, take the Floo, or use the Knight Bus, it matters not. But the muggles will wonder about that site in London eventually."

"I will. Today," Malfoy vowed.

"And tell your heir to behave himself."

"I will."

"Donate the gold anonymously. No publicity at all. And no accusations of theft when you finally notice the gold is missing. If anyone wonders where all the gold went, you'll smile and be mysterious, as if it were some deep plot of yours."

"I will."

"Go. In three hours, you'll take to your bed for a day and not remember coming to Hogwarts or doing anything I've ordered you to do. You will think your house elves died, and you won't replace them or hire squibs."

"I obey."

"You will make your wife breakfast every day you're both still alive. Now go."

Malfoy walked down the path, slowly, and tried not to get splashed by the carriages.

How...

How had any of that happened?

The Headmaster glanced at Harry. "Now, Mr. Potter, perhaps you will keep what you observed to yourself? Though I would hope you won't forget this lesson."

What lesson was that? Don't anger a wizard older than you – or deeper in mysteries? "I won't talk of it, sir."

No one would believe him.

"You may wonder why?"

"I did." Harry had so many guesses. Hadn't that one elf Malfoy sold been Dobby?

"He was involved with that diary you discovered and turned in. He wriggled out of any punishment. Amelia Bones did what she could, but Malfoy did what he could. We wizards have long believed that might was right. Look at me and how few laws apply. I just turned up at Hogwarts and said I was headmaster. No one was willing to tell me 'no' a year ago..."

Was that how it had happened?

"The same for Dumbledore or any of a number of others, You-Know-Who for his first few years. Nowadays, might is taken as gold coins or whispers in ears. But sometimes might is actually might. Malfoy won't remember, of course, why ten years of his rents are gone from his vault. But you do."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't forget and don't ever be sloppy, Mr. Potter. Now off you go."

Harry walked away, but paused. Flamel now had three house-elves to deal with.

"I guess we can use some additional help cleaning up the school. There are so many rooms and floors in disrepair. And I have but a year to set this place to rights before my time is done here. Can you help, little ones?"

"Yes, Perfessy." The speaker did look like that crazed elf, Dobby. He seemed a touch more sane now. Just a touch.

"There we are. Most of the campaigns to seat someone at Hogwarts are now ended. Malfoy will be smarting, and mostly broke, for a decade to come – and he won't even know why. Enjoy your time at Hogwarts."

"Thank you, Perfessy."

Flamel returned inside the castle.

Harry got into a carriage with some older students from Ravenclaw who had been a bit further back from the Flamel-Malfoy tussle. Not one of them asked Harry what he overheard. They preferred to chat about summer plans. Harry just said he would travel a little. Others were a little more detailed. A month at Tintagel. A summer at the Wizard Palace outside Paris. A tour of the manor houses in St. Petersburg. It all sounded grand and a little boring. Well, maybe not Tintagel.

Harry waited in the Express for Hermione and Neville. They played cards, but not Exploding Snap. Hermione taught them all a game called poker. Harry had heard of it but never played it. He was terrible at first, but he had fun betting Every Flavor Beans.

Hermione also spoke of her plans for more secret classes for the coming year. She planned to spend a part of her summer sending letters to distinguished older Gryffindors to see who might be willing to come and teach for an evening.

"I think it sounds grand," Harry said. And he meant it. She had calmed down, too, as she had found her calling. She had also reconciled what she was supposed to think of the Ministry and what she knew it to be. She seemed happier now that she was more grounded. She would be a teacher of the truth. For now that meant finding speakers. In the future, perhaps she would be in front of a class herself.

Harry wondered what his contribution to all of this would be. He didn't know, but there was so much that didn't meet his highest hopes or even his lowest expectations. He just hadn't found the right path yet to change anything. He wouldn't stop looking.


	3. Year Three

X-X-X

Year Three

X-X-X

Harry woke in his tent, though calling it a tent was like calling a palace merely a guest house. This had been the cheapest tent Harry could find when he went looking in Diagon Alley last year. It had four bedrooms and three water closets, a kitchen, a lounge, a library, and a massive pantry brimming with preservation charms. It even had a fireplace that could be set as a Floo connection, not that Harry had.

Top of the line models had included swimming pools, interior and exterior water fountains, ballrooms, dueling chambers, magically lit rooms for growing herbs or food plants, and indoor Quidditch pitches. So much ridiculousness.

Four bedrooms was more than enough for one wizard.

Harry hadn't been to London once this summer and didn't miss it so far. He could buy anything he needed in Godric's Hollow, which was a short bicycle ride away. He'd bought the bike when he first got off the train. It was lovely to have, another thing he hadn't learned as a child.

He walked outside and looked at the foundation of the Potter home, Godric's Hall. He'd been beavering away until now just to get it exposed. He had been trying to preserve whatever he could, which hadn't been easy. The lands were overgrown in a beautiful, tangled way. He left as much as he could while trying to give himself space to work around the foundation.

Harry had learned enough to make a few guesses. If the Potters had had elves, they had perished in the fire or perhaps later. They certainly hadn't been in any condition to maintain or repair things after.

None of the lands showed signs of people on them, at all, not for plundering building materials or taking the fruits that would appear later in the summer or even the hay from the fields. The outermost wards over the property were still keeping the non-magical away.

The house was ruined, but the lands were protected. So sad news mixed with the good.

All the materials to put this house back together were likely still here. They would be weather damaged, fire damaged, but all present if inconveniently collapsed into the basement or cellar.

Harry was finally ready to start pulling materials out of the pit. He had cleared away flat, vegetation-free areas to store it which were the less-beautiful areas of the grounds, the ones that had been lawns rather than gardens or orchards.

His cutter, Diviso, had become one of his better spells from all the practice. Though he'd been practicing all of them, even Fulmenifer. He could use it outside without hurting himself now. It had taken a considerable amount of practice to develop that control over lightning.

And no one on the outside said a peep, sent an owl, or made any noise whatsoever. It was almost as good as being under the protections of Hogwarts, so far.

Now he would get to further refine his levitation and stacking skills. This wasn't quite the adventure he had planned, digging out a ruined house was more work and less adventure than he had hoped. But he had found something of interest from some of the stones that hadn't tumbled into the foundation. For there were a few stones that were covered in runes.

He didn't know anything about runes yet. He had taken Madam Spurl's advice and decided to study the subject. He had three books that he'd ordered by letter, but he hadn't made much progress through them. He had discovered that permanent enchantments and protections were largely considered a Master's topic in the field, so not for someone first starting out.

Well, Harry had been working on his patience. And he rarely turned down a challenge. He'd been working on some of his adventuring spells for more than a year now and he kept practicing them, even when he couldn't seem to improve them. More practice, more effort, and he usually got there.

Harry looked at the pile of materials waiting for him inside the foundation. "Not going to lift themselves, are they?" he asked himself.

He'd best get started before the day got too warm to work. Cooling charms helped, but the sun at its peak could sap anyone.

He wanted to make a good go of this. Headmaster Flamel had put the idea of rebuilding this house in his mind. Harry didn't know if he could – and certainly not at his present age – but he could make a start. This was a project that would span years.

X-X-X

Harry had vast stacks of stone blocks by the first week in August. The stacks were a little impressive to look at, but they didn't reveal just how much work had gone into reclaiming them. Most had been damaged by the fire. All had water damage from more than ten years of sitting in pools of rainwater. Some had lichens and mold growing on them. Quite a few were damaged from the way the house had collapsed in on itself, damage Harry wouldn't trust a reparo to fix.

Harry didn't have enough undamaged stone to rebuild Godric's Hall exactly as it had been. That was the bad news.

On the other side of the ledger, his levitation technique had become top-notch: powerful, quick, and refined. He had discovered a few variations of cleaning spells that got even smoke damage out of otherwise pale-colored stone. The day he started reclaiming this material, he managed to lift and clean thirty-nine stones – and that left him as exhausted magically as if he'd lifted and hauled each stone with his own muscles.

Today, before ten o'clock, he'd already added seventy-five to the stacks. He was stronger, much stronger, with these few spells. And the training had allowed him to strengthen his cutter and his other adventuring spells. By next year, he might be able to go somewhere.

"What have you been doing?" a voice called out.

Harry about dropped his wand. Someone was here? Harry turned and saw his godfather. He'd written Sirius that he was camping here, trying to see about Godric's Hall.

"Did you sneak out of the hospital?" Harry asked.

"Should have. Some godson of mine didn't come to visit..."

"I'm supposed to be out of the magical world in the summers. That crazy ghost of Dumbledore might have people who still believe his nuttiness."

"The letters were fine, Harry." Sirius gave a frail smile, thin with disappearing lips. That cold prison had even stolen his lips and the upturn of his mouth. "No, to answer your question, I didn't sneak out. I sought a release and they said they'd done what they could."

But why had he sought a release? Harry's godfather still looked like a skeleton with a little flesh stretched upon it.

"And what's the real reason?" Harry asked.

Sirius laughed. That sounded real. "I couldn't lie to your father, either. There was a foul up at Azkaban..."

Harry was a little surprised, but not much. "What happened?"

"They knew that my old _friend_ Wormtail was an animagus. So they had spell-layers outfit his cell to keep him from transforming and escaping."

"Sounds good," Harry said.

"It should have been, but the prison's stones they used were old, weather-worn, the whole bit. Not so long ago, one of those worn stones cracked and a hole opened in the protections. Three people escaped, several others tried. Peter was killed escaping."

The prison administration had tried to do the right thing, then cheaped out on stone? And it killed people... "Who escaped?"

Harry figured that was what had gotten Sirius out of the hospital. He was here to give Harry a warning.

"A cousin of mine, Bellatrix Lestrange, and another Death Eater named Rookwood. Also, the Wolf of Bandon..."

Death Eater. No one had ever explained the term to him, not even Binns, the history ghost. Harry had picked it up from all his reading of old Daily Prophets. Would have been nice not to need to self-study everything...

"And you're scared?" Harry asked.

"You're here, by yourself." Sirius pointed around to the empty space.

"On warded land."

"The wards didn't stop me."

"Did you come here when you were younger? Before the house burned?"

"Well, yes..."

"I haven't dug up the stones at the perimeter, but I'm guessing that invitation you received is still active. I've seen people pass by on the road. I've stood twenty feet from them and they didn't notice me, or anything else. Unless the escapees were also Potter guests..."

"Unlikely..."

Harry saw that his godfather was sweating – and it wasn't even warm out yet. "Come into the tent. Tell me all the news."

A second look confirmed the first. His godfather was beginning to look a little ragged as he stood. He'd probably been in a bed so long he couldn't stand for any length of time.

"Perhaps a glass of water?" Harry asked.

His godfather agreed.

Harry led the way and got Sirius settled into a comfortable chair. Obtaining water was simple and Sirius wanted nothing else for now.

When Harry took his seat, he had to ask a few questions to get Sirius to explain the details and why he looked so shaken.

First, an escape from Azkaban had never happened before. Second, no one as incompetent as Cornelius Fudge had managed to gut the Ministry so effectively either. He'd been in office not so many years, but he'd fired his second set of office staff a few weeks earlier in addition to the various other hiring freezes he'd put in place.

"What are they doing to find the escapees?" Harry asked. He figured Sirius wasn't telling him everything.

"They're hunting the three with Dementors. We'll need to prepare you for that. There's talk of stationing them in Hogsmeade, if not outside Hogwarts."

Harry didn't know much about Dementors, but stationing prison guards at a school... Who exactly did Fudge have advising him?

"I've read a little about the Patronus Charm," Harry said.

"You learned it?"

"No, not yet. I saw little need to learn something so specialized. I guess I'll have to try."

"That you will."

Sirius drank his water and looked at the tent. He didn't think it such a marvel as Harry had. He'd probably grown up with a model that had crystal chandeliers and water fountains in every room.

"I saw you were cleaning and saving the stones. Did the whole house fall into the basement?"

Harry nodded. "Mostly. I got the other stones first. I've recovered and stored everything I could."

"You've spent your entire summer doing this, haven't you? From dawn to dusk. Your letters said you were just doing a little cleaning up..."

Harry shrugged.

Sirius wasn't angry. "Some of the happiest times of my life were in this manor, Harry, with your grand parents and your father. How can I help?"

Harry didn't know if he wanted help. There was Headmaster Flamel's advice in his mind. But he wasn't rebuilding now or warding. He'd need to spend next summer, if not longer, learning about that. But he also wanted to have an adventure, a good one.

As for Sirius, he looked as healthy as a crinkly, bleached leaf on an autumn tree. Which was not a solid recommendation.

"Well, the falling stones broke through the floor of the upper basement. I'm almost done with the lower basement. There was some stone blocking what looked like another stairway leading down..."

Sirius nodded. "Dungeons."

"Godric's Hall had dungeons?" Harry asked.

"It was first built on this site seven hundred years ago. Of course it had dungeons."

Harry had no idea.

This was something Sirius _could_ help with. Advice, memories of the place, that sort of thing.

By that evening, Harry stood in those dungeons. He still had much to move, but Sirius had pointed him to the area where he needed to concentrate.

Sirius floated down to the dungeon level with Harry's assistance.

Sirius grinned and pointed at one cell with a rotted door. "James locked me in that cell for half a day for getting him in trouble with his mother. I sang...um, well certain songs..."

"Dirty songs?" Harry supplied.

"Perhaps."

"Did you lock him in a cell?"

"Repeat a good prank? Not if I can help it. I did some very clever spellwork to bury him at the bottom of the manure pile. There used to be stables near the trees."

Burying someone in manure... Sirius really had taken pranks as his life's work.

"The building's not up anymore, but I can see where it was...," Harry said.

Sirius smiled, pleased with memories of old friends and rough silliness.

"What's that at the end?" Sirius asked, pointing down the hallway.

"A door?" A very solid looking door.

"It was never there before. Trust me. I know these cells..."

Sirius moved toward the door that was different from these others. It looked rather like the door of a vault. Not quite a bank vault, from when Harry had caught a glimpse on the telly in some film, and not quite a Gringotts vault door, either.

"This wasn't here... Unless it was hidden," Sirius said. "Illusion charms that failed?"

"Should we open it?"

"You're the last Potter. I'd say it was your decision."

"Let's dry the floor here well. There are drains so it's not so bad, but if there is a vault behind this door..."

Yes, it was a stall. Yes, Harry should want to see what was behind the door. But what if it wasn't good? What if it didn't match what he thought about his family? Instead of a vault, it could be a torture chamber or something worse...

By the time the floor was dry, Sirius was in rough shape. Harry got him out of there and promised they'd return in the morning, after a good dinner and a significant breakfast. Sirius, of course, would have one of the unused bedrooms in the tent for the night. He got his pick of the three remaining rooms.

The sun was bright when Harry and Sirius returned the next morning. The dungeon floor was still dry. There was no more putting this off.

"Well, open it," Sirius said.

Harry stared at the thing. "How? I have a Gringotts key, but I don't think that's any use here."

"Magic to open it? Or blood? I don't know, Harry."

Harry put his hands on the dark metal door. Nothing happened, other than his hands became cold.

He used his wand to cast a Lumos to see if the door wanted a sample of his magic. Then he got out a knife and sliced the back of his thumb. He rubbed the blood on the door then healed the shallow wound.

The door did nothing.

"I don't know," Sirius said.

Harry studied the door. He was looking for a keyhole (but where would the key have gotten to?) or something else that served as a lock.

Finally he set his hand on one of the handles that protruded from the door. Harry pushed. Nothing. Then he tugged on the handle. It pulled hard, but it opened.

"It wasn't locked at all?" Sirius asked, confused.

"Maybe it was sealed only with magic? If the illusion hiding it failed, maybe the locking spell went with it? Maybe the heat of the fire all those years ago?"

Whatever the cause, the failure in security here was troubling. Though it was convenient now that Harry came to look.

He took a few slow steps before he got inside. It was very dark. A Lumos did little.

"Transfigure some torches?" Sirius asked.

Sirius waited while Harry went up and collected some fallen branches. Harry didn't make anything stunning with his transfiguration. But it was enough.

They wrestled with the vault door to widen it some more. They were both stalling now.

Then Harry went in first. Sirius was close behind.

The bounty inside stunned Harry once he could see it.

"The house's portraits are here. How?" Sirius asked. He ran his fingers over the undamaged frames.

"The furniture, the pieces Mrs. Potter loved best, they're intact. The drapes are over those barrels of coin... The house elves must have risked their own lives saving all of this."

"I'd rather have the elves than some old cloth," Harry said. "But the portraits..."

"Yes," Sirius said.

"Do you know how to bring them awake again?"

"Well, I know how some of them worked in the Black family. The Potter ones may be the same – or they might be different. We can try."

"Yes," Harry said.

Harry and Sirius spent that day and part of the next down there. Sirius said much of what had been in Godric's Hall was lost, but what had been saved was very impressive. There were cases of books under preservation. The Potter silver service was there as was some of the china. Three beds had been saved, too.

They took a few of the portraits into the tent and did the ritual Sirius knew. Neither Harry's parents nor his grandparents had left surviving portraits. So Harry spoke with distant great great uncles and aunts and the like. There were many people happy to share stories of Godric's Hall. More than one asked what had happened to the Book of Family Magic.

The task at present was bringing up cases of books and searching them. Many of the tomes were quite valuable. Harry noted down the books and the lessons they taught, sometimes a spell, sometimes a design for a ritual or a rune, sometimes a potion. They were all things Harry had seen mentioned elsewhere and he had done a decent amount of surveying through the Hogwarts library – and compared notes with Hermione who had done even more.

"Do you know how to remake the wards?" Harry asked.

Sirius shook his head. "Had I not run away, I might have eventually been told about the Black wards. But I don't know. I'm sorry."

Harry shrugged. He was used to finding out useful things on his own.

He might learn the lesson better if it was harder for him to complete the task. Plus, he was wary now. Someone had gotten inside these protections in order to attack Godric's Hall. Someone trusted by the Potters. So just reusing the same runes didn't hold much appeal now.

Harry was learning more than he expected from his non-adventure this summer. Especially of dark concerns.

Harry put on a smile he didn't quite feel. "School's in a week. What will you do until Yule break, Sirius?"

"Remember, it's Padfoot."

"Padfoot."

"I thought I'd help secure all of this, keep the elements out. Then, perhaps, I'll look into some of the other Potter lands. I can remember a few."

"Farm lands?"

"Supposedly. But I suspect there may be more vaults. You have enough gold here to think this is where they kept it. But the family secrets... They exist. They're not here. They were hidden elsewhere. I won't necessarily be able to get at them for you. Hopefully they're better protected than just a vault door with failed spells. But I could point you to the right place. Someone should have written down how the runes worked and how they powered the wards."

"Thank you," Harry said.

"Your family was just as paranoid as my own. But they were far nicer. I'll have to dust off a bit of my deviousness if I'm going to be of any use."

"Where will you stay? The tent?"

"Well, I could rehabilitate some of the Black properties." His face scrunched in disgust. "Maybe I'll wait until you can help."

"You should get them protected at least."

"Yes." He frowned. "I think I'll buy my own tent. Something big and garish..."

"Four fountains and an aviary for pretty little birds?" Harry asked, grinning.

"At a minimum." Sirius did his best impression of a snob. It was remarkably similar to a few people Harry knew of at Hogwarts.

Harry nodded toward the excavation. "I'm going to rebuild this. Perhaps not as large, not as many floors, but I am going to rebuild it. With the stones I brought up."

"It's a good plan, Harry."

He nodded back to the excavation. "What about the gold? Should I put it in Gringotts?"

He asked because he didn't know. He also wanted to understand Sirius better. Why not ask his advice about things?

"If your family kept it here, and it's many multiples of what you still have in Gringotts, there was a reason. Let's find a spell to hide it. I've come to believe you about people not being able to get on the land. But let's not depend only on that..."

Harry liked it. He had a better idea about his godfather, too. The man could think.

He tore himself away from the portraits and the new/old books. Harry had letters to write and return. He had taken Madam Spurl's advice and begun writing to several of the people she seemed to loathe the least. He also wrote to Madam Spurl in Mexico. She was apparently causing seven kinds of havoc and enjoying herself immensely. Harry didn't think he'd enjoy working closely with her, but she was a prize as a storyteller, especially when thousands of miles distant.

He would need to spend more time trying to make the Patronus Charm work. Not luck as yet. It really was as hard as advertised.

When Harry made dinner that night, he gave Sirius a triple portion. And Sirius made a genuine effort to eat all of his stew.

X-X-X

Harry was chatting with the portrait of a Potter who had added the fourth floor onto Godric's Hall. Harry hadn't even noticed a fourth floor from the photographs.

"Oh, they added a fifth floor a century later. I advised on that, but someone else had to build it," Jameson Potter said.

Harry went and found the rubbings he'd taken of some of the rune stones he'd found.

"Perhaps you know about some of these. Maybe you can help me..."

"You been taught your runes yet, Harry?"

"I'm starting this year."

"You've been two years at the school and they're just now showing you the runes? A disgrace. My grandfather never held with shipping us off to a foreign school. But he died and my father shipped us off to have peace with my mother, who had been taught at Hogwarts."

"Shipped? You mean you took a ship on the water to get to Hogwarts?"

"That we did."

How different from taking a train up from London.

"When you've learned your runes and learned them well, I will help you work out how to improve what we did. For it wasn't done as well as I know I could do now. I was but a boy when we had the runes swapped out. I lived to my seventieth year. So I dare say we can do better. Perhaps your teachers will know better and teach you better. Soak it all up."

"I will," Harry said. He folded the onionskin sheets. He intended to take them with him to work on them. He didn't fear them being seen by anyone because he knew he wouldn't just copy what had been done. He was building a home from the first stone. He would relay the protections in just the same way.

Sirius came into the 'Portrait Room' of Harry's tent. "Harry, you're going to be late. It's a tight connection in London."

Harry rose from his chair. "Jameson, I'll talk to you at Yule or next summer, for sure."

"No, no, go out into the world. See it before you come back to rebuild. See the world, Lord Potter."

Lord Potter... How strange. He was thirteen, but he'd been Lord Potter – a courtesy title, not anything real – since before he was two.

Sirius walked Harry to the train station in Godric's Hollow. Sirius was staying for a while, perhaps to exorcise some of his own demons. He'd created a matched pair of mirrors so that he and Harry could speak. They would never attempt to be father and son, but friends was likely as was mentor and apprentice.

The train to London was an early, early morning affair, filled with men in suits who looked like they hadn't slept. Harry had allowed Sirius to owl-order him a new trunk that could shrink, which Harry now carried in a school bag. He had also sent Hedwig directly up to Hogwarts as the jostling of a train made her unhappy. Harry looked like an ordinary kid, with nothing obviously magical about him.

The train arrived at Paddington Station a little before nine. He needed to get to King's Cross before eleven – and hopefully find some food along the way.

Harry arrived at Platform 9 ¾ with a little time to spare. He wasn't the best yet with the Tube, though he had found an egg and bacon butty at a stall and enjoyed it.

Harry walked through the barrier.

The Hogwarts Express was a glorious thing to look upon on the First of September. He stood and looked at it for a time before he climbed aboard.

He relaxed in the seat. Just three days earlier, he would still have been doing something strenuous by this time of day on his land. Harry hoped Sirius would be okay, not holed up talking to old portraits all the time.

His godfather mentioned one of his friends, a Mr. Lupin who was usually referred to as Moony. Perhaps Sirius would get in contact now that he was out of St. Mungo's.

It felt good to sit in the compartment and do nothing for a few minutes. Harry had been so busy over the summer, he was glad for the break of heading to school. Funny. His daily work would change from lifting stones to performing school tasks. But the summer had been good for him. He was taller now and stronger. He was tanned and his magic was far more developed.

A girl passed by in the corridor and seemed not to see Harry.

"Hermione? Hermione, would you like to sit?" Harry asked.

She turned around, blinked a few times, smiled, and pulled her trunk inside. "I found Neville on the platform. Let me make sure he knows where we are."

"The more, the merrier. Were the Weasleys there?"

"Not that I saw."

"Everything is rush, rush with them."

Hermione ducked out and Harry did his best to get her trunk out of the way. Then he remembered he was a wizard who had spent the summer improving his levitation charm.

When Hermione returned with Neville, she blushed more than once when she looked at Harry. Had he grown an extra nostril or something?

Finally her strangeness ended. Hermione offered lovely tales of southern France, from Lyon to Nice to Marseilles, where she had spent part of her summer. Neville had spent some time in Holyhead, on Anglesey, in Wales. Though he hadn't seen the Holyhead Harpies playing Quidditch.

Ron, when he arrived, had boastful stories of Cairo and Pharoah's Lane and a cursebreaker's dig where his oldest brother had taken them to visit.

Harry mentioned that he had been looking into his family's lands, but had found only ruins. He did not mention the surprise in the dungeons or explain how he intended to transform a ruin back into a home.

Several hours into the journey, the skies outside darkened and the train stopped. And coldness descended on the compartment.

Something opened the compartment door. Harry felt a pull on himself, on his mind. He felt fear. He felt like sicking up. He felt rage.

That last started when Harry laid eyes on a creature or a demon. The Dementor, for what else could it be, was taller than the doorway. The hood of its cloak snagged as it entered, but when the cloth fell away, only an outline of blackness emanated from where a head should have been. The hands it possessed were darkened, like flesh burned in a fire. All it was missing was a scythe and a booming voice or even a soft one.

Dementor. Death. Demon.

Harry could hear faint screaming and he was suddenly extremely tired.

He had never gotten the Patronus Charm to work, still he had to try.

"Expecto Patronum."

He saw a little wisp of hazy white emerge from his wand, before it collapsed in on itself.

The demon was reaching for Neville and lowering its head.

"Ignis Solis."

The small, hot ball of fire lodged inside the Dementor. The chill of the room ended and it became very warm very quickly. The Dementor shrieked and it was as sickening a sound as looking upon its almost featureless face. It fled the compartment taking its brethren in the hallway with it.

The last Harry saw of it, one Dementor still had a gut of fire. Ignis Solis shouldn't last that long, but this one did. How?

That was the last thing Harry was able to think of before he lost consciousness.

X-X-X

"Mr. Potter? Harry? Harry Potter. Mr. Potter?"

The voice was insistent and prodding.

Harry opened his eyes. He could see he was still on the train. Who was calling his name?

He turned his head. Perenelle Flamel was in his compartment on this train. How?

The train was moving again, Harry could feel.

"Are they gone, the Dementors?" he asked.

"Yes. My apologies. I was on board, but dealing with some foulness a few cars back."

Harry smiled. "I'm glad they didn't hurt anyone."

"They tried. Oh, they tried. I am going to flay Cornelius Fudge and see if he had a lick of sense anywhere in his body."

Where that might be hyperbole from someone else, Harry thought that this woman, far older than she looked, could actually do it. As in, had the skill and the stomach to use a knife in that way.

Harry chose not to dwell on it.

"Do you feel well?" she asked.

"I'm fine. Where are my friends, though?"

"I asked them to step into the hall until I had seen to your care."

"So they're fine?"

"Jittery, but fine."

"Even Neville? That demon was reaching for him."

"Then he has the worst unresolved memories of anyone in the compartment. Perhaps I shall chat with him next."

"Please, Professor."

"You're aware of Dementors, then?"

Aware of, but useless against, them. "I tried the Patronus Charm. It didn't work."

"But you drove one off with fire..."

"Yes, I think so."

"That's known not to work."

Harry shrugged. It had been desperation.

"As old as I am, I still try to learn something new every day. Good work, Mr. Potter. I'd never thought to try to burn one of those creatures, given it was _known_ not to work. And I've never heard of anyone doing it damage as you have managed. Very good work."

"So why did this fire work if others have tried and failed?"

"I will be trying to figure that out myself. Ignis Solis, I believe?"

"Yes, Professor."

"It's not one I know well. I never was much for needing to burn things. I shall investigate and let you know what I discover."

"Thank you, Professor."

"No, my thanks are for you. Disproving several centuries of dogma as a third-year student in a desperate moment. You've a good mind, Potter. Continue to use it. And that spell must have been one you worked on steadily."

"For almost two years."

"You've made it formidable, to say the least. Your hard work shall not fail you in the future."

Harry resolved to continue working on his adventuring spells even more. He had used three of them now to save his own life – and the world didn't seem to be getting any safer.

Harry had a long way to go before he could go on a real adventure. It was hard enough just getting to school some years.

"Well, I shall attend to Mr. Longbottom in another compartment. I will allow your other friends to return here."

"Thank you."

"I should give you a warning. One of Nick's good ideas has been soured already by various forces."

"What idea?"

"He decided upon restoring several courses that had lapsed over the years. He managed to get one set up for this year as a core class, although it will split time with your Astronomy course. One week Astronomy, one week traditions, although the Board of Governors insisted on calling it Wizard Culture."

"Well, that sounds good."

"It was good until Lucius Malfoy, who was dismissed from the Board, called in some favors. The Professor of Wizard Culture is a rather unsavory character who was sacked from the Ministry. Madam Umbridge is one I will be watching with care."

"She was fired from the Ministry, but Hogwarts took her on?" Harry asked.

"Lucius Malfoy experienced a reversal of fortunes, as perhaps you're aware."

Harry nodded. He had seen Malfoy and Headmaster Flamel exchange words, and more valuable things, last year.

"He was her primary _sponsor_ at the Ministry. Which means he fed her enormous sums of galleons so she could pay for her position in Cornelius Fudge's administration _and_ pay for her own spies to occupy various offices of the Ministry. With Malfoy's gold gone, she could not pay. Fudge threw her over even though she has extensive blackmail files – he wanted someone wealthy. So now he's relying on one of the Notts, that sweating one, to keep him in gold."

"And we got stuck with her?"

"Nick decided not to fight the appointment and bought himself some future favors which he has plans to use. This is our last year here and we have other things to accomplish. Watch your self. I will be watching as well. When she fouls up, as she will, I will enjoy teaching her a thing or two about Wizard Culture. I have seen traditions start and end and start again. I will enjoy humbling her."

And Harry would as well. "I'll be wary of her."

"You're a good lad, Mr. Potter. I understand you're taking Runes and Magical Creatures."

"Yes, Professor."

"Perhaps I should add Arithmancy to your schedule. You studied mathematics in your primary school?"

"I did."

"Give it a try for a year. You may find it of value given your impressive work on that fire spell."

"Is it for spells, changing them?" Harry hadn't ever been sure what the class was about.

"Well, it can be. Our teacher is a fairly silly witch. She teaches the fun things one can do, if one is interested in divination. She thinks it garners interest from her students. As if modifying spells isn't more interesting than trying to forecast the future... It's all math so I say make good use of it. Take the class and read ahead in the texts to the parts of interest to you..."

"I wish someone had explained this last year..."

"Another item for my list. We really do rely on older students to coach the younger ones. But if the older students have bad information... You are correct, Mr. Potter. Fix one problem so another six can turn up. Will you enroll?"

"Yes. Can I owl order the books?"

"I dare say you can."

Harry smiled. He nodded. He would take the class.

"Work hard and you will do well." And she was gone.

X-X-X

Hermione burst into the compartment as if it were on fire and she had a child or perhaps an injured kitten to rescue. Instead, she had Harry to cluck over like some worried mother.

Ron laughed when he came in and saw Hermione checking Harry for wounds or for knocks to the head. Ron sat and said nothing. But he smiled. Oh, did he smile.

Neville came back into the compartment several minutes later. He had a faint smile on his face. Harry recognized it. The happy-confused smile Harry wore after talking to one or both of the Flamels.

"Are you okay, Neville?" Harry asked.

"She did a couple spells on me. I feel a lot better."

"Spells? What were they?" Hermione asked.

"I don't know. She didn't say any words..."

Hermione pursed her lips. But Harry could see she wouldn't forget.

Fred and George Weasley were the next visitors.

"Have you heard..."

"...the news? Of a new..."

"...class, dear Hermione?"

"A new class. There weren't any unexpected books on my list."

"I doubt the new professor can read."

"At least according to our father..."

"...who is rather sharper than we ever knew..."

"...maybe we take after him. He was able to hide..."

"...himself in the Ministry all these years."

"He's a fine role model, he is."

It was nauseating watching these two complete each other's sentences.

"Stop," Harry said.

They looked put out for about one second before they almost bounced off down the hall rather like human-sized rubber balls. Instead, the remained for a few minutes and explained what they knew. They had actually been listening to their father over the summer after his performance at Hogwarts last year. Specifically they had been listening to what their father said about Madam Umbridge falling out with Minister Fudge.

Interesting.

Then they did bounce down the hall. Well, not really. They walked. But they did it with undue enthusiasm.

"Bribes...," Hermione said.

"She couldn't keep up with her end of paying the bribes up _and_ keep her creatures employed...," Harry corrected her.

"Fudge threw them all out as a bad lot. Someone else stepped right in, of course. It's expensive to be the Undersecretary, but one can become fabulously wealthy if one does it right...," Ron said. He, too, had been listening to his father.

"So she's too stupid to be the Bully of the Ministry. So she wrangled a job here. I say we cut her no slack." That was Neville. Those spells of Professor Flamels had really done something for him.

Harry nodded.

Hermione looked torn. A Ministry stooge...but one of her Professors.

The twins returned with bad news. "Oliver Wood's coming for you, Harry," Fred (maybe) said.

"You could run, but he'd keep looking," George said.

"I suggest listening. Then saying yes."

Harry shook his head. "Fine."

Then Oliver appeared a few minutes later. "I have been looking for you. Holding out on Gryffindor that you can fly. We need you on the team, Harry..."

The rant continued well past the point Harry would have agreed to try out for Seeker, assuming Katie Bell didn't mind.

But the words poured from Oliver's mouth until they were nearly at Hogsmeade. He must have been planning this speech all summer, Harry thought. Might as well let him deliver it before he burst from all the pent-up pressure.

X-X-X

Harry's first class of the year was Ancient Runes where he was joined by every third year in Gryffindor plus quite a few of the Ravenclaws. Hadn't this been a class attended by all four houses last year?

Of course, the third years last year hadn't enjoyed a year of Madam Spurl showing them how useful runes could be prior to their selecting electives.

Professor Babbling entered the classroom. She was young, but had gray hair. She wore robes of blue and black, but no hat. She seemed kind even though she did not smile.

"Class." She glanced around. "Class. Please."

The room quieted.

She didn't have McGonagall's iron stare, but she managed fine, Harry thought.

"I am surprised at the number of students this year. I suppose I have last year's Defense teacher, the first cursebreaker to teach here in some years, to thank for your interest. While she may have told you excellent stories to gain your interest in the discipline, she may have forgotten to describe the difficulties of learning the subject in the first place."

Was she trying to get some of them to quit, Harry wondered.

"I suppose all of you are here for the exciting bits. Those come later, after years of study, hard years. I'd best tell you now while you can still transfer."

She proceeded to demonstrate exactly what she meant by years of study. She laid out the next three years for them, what different sets of symbols they would learn and what applications they would undertake. None of the students in the room groaned at the excessive amount of work they would have to undertake to even qualify for NEWT-level Runes, which finally touched on advanced topics like permanent enchantments and warding. Mastery of those topics, and others, came from apprenticeships. The magic was older than almost any other kind, hence obscure and opaque, she reminded them more than once.

Babbling, at least, wasn't raising any false hopes.

"In a normal year, students who take this class often have a specific reason. That's fine. I allow everyone to work toward a private or family project. However, everyone will have to select a public project that can be discussed with the rest of the class. Begin thinking of your options as we do an overview of the field this week. We'll set public projects early in November and they'll be due in May. I am open to discussing private or family projects during my office hours."

"We'll get to make an enchanted item this year?" Hermione asked.

"You get to design one. If the designs are acceptable in May, and within the bounds of safety, I will create them during class so that you can all see what you have to look forward to. If you continue your studies."

So she wasn't just trying to wash them away like stains in a cloth. She would threaten them with work then tempt them with rewards.

"Now that I've tried to scare you off somewhat, I suppose I should show you why you shouldn't run screaming."

She brought out something small, then enlarged it. It was a model of a city that floated above her hand.

"This is Alexandria two thousand years ago. In Egypt, under the Greeks, then under the Romans." She shifted the model a bit and pointed somewhere else. "This is the portion of the Great Library that burned several times, the section open to the muggles which has been thought destroyed for many hundreds of years. This larger portion, which one can still visit today if one applies for permission, has never been destroyed. Why? It's the magical section and it is protected by runes."

She jabbed her wand at the model and it flew to a table at the side of the room. A poke of the wand had some large papers fly toward her. They hung in the air behind her. "I made these magical tracings myself during my first visit to the Library. Notice how these hieroglyphics glitter. These are infused runes, which is something we will learn toward the end of your fifth year of study. These runes are empowered to do as they are instructed."

She walked to the left-most chart. "This set here pulls a little magic from every visitor to keep all the runes powered."

She pointed at another spot on the chart. "This set suppresses flame. It's a very old set, but the Library now has modern versions as well for fire prevention. No one wants all these books to burn."

She stepped to the center chart. "Now, this set prevents any person inside the Library from attacking another. This set keeps the books and scrolls from going beyond this boundary. And on and on." She only waved at the last chart without explaining what it meant.

Even so, Harry was intrigued. Babbling had a bit of the showman in her, didn't she? Or maybe she'd heard about what Madam Spurl had done for her first class the previous year?

"The rules of the Library aren't written down and ignored, as is true of Hogwarts and many other places."

She sounded angry about that.

Harry could see why. He had seen the treatment some students received. Or Harry himself, from Snape in first year.

"The rules are written into the runes and the magic of the place enforces them. A person literally cannot steal a book or light a fire inside the structure. He cannot lie to a librarian or hide a scroll. He cannot cut a page from a book or open an inkpot. There are many rules, some silly and antiquated, many still relevant. That is how the oldest library in the world is still around, at least for the magical. Sadly, the collection is not all encompassing. It has excellent resources for study in Greek, Latin, and different periods of Egyptian language and history. Plus it covers many magical subjects, including those that are banned in most of the world."

What did that mean, Harry wondered.

"Before you ask, there are very few structures like this still standing in the world, whether that is good or not is a question of metaphysics. The inability to lie might be very useful in a certain building in London... We will dabble a bit into some history and other topics in this class. I promise it's not all memorization."

She was no Madam Spurl, but Babbling had convinced Harry to remain in her class. Yes, the good material was years off. But it was tantalizing enough that he could be patient.

She explained how the class would run and what the assignments would be like. The only one that sounds interesting was the year project. Well, Harry also had his rubbings from the wreckage of Godric's Hall, but that might be better as a private project. Or something to pass a few hours in the library.

What would Harry do for a public project?

Professor Babbling ended the class. A few of the students looked unsure of remaining. The rest seemed excited. Harry would wait and see about who stayed.

Harry put his textbook away in his bag and left with Hermione and Neville. Ron had been about the first person out the door. Harry wondered if Ron would drop. He had signed up for three classes and hinted he would only do two of them...

Harry felt something impact his cheek. It exploded and then everything was covered in green. Green goop, green ink, something. It smelled horrible.

"Peeves," Hermione shrieked.

Harry whipped around looking for that demented poltergeist.

"Rotty Potty hasn't paid the rent... Rotty Potty got his skull bent... Rotty Potty paid up one hundred percent... Rotty Potty was such a good gent... Rotty Potty watched where he went... Rotty Potty happiness to his friends lent... Otherwise, Rotty Potty won't like how I vent..."

Peeves had set his demands to song.

Harry flushed when he thought of what that horrible toe-rag wanted. Zapping him and making an ooze everywhere. Disgusting.

Harry didn't have a class the next period so he went and showered, then took himself to the library. He needed something to keep that poltergeist away.

He even asked Madam Pince for help. Could she have scowled any more?

Charms, no.

The defense texts that referenced spirits were useless.

There was a reference in one book to a rune that might help.

But Harry couldn't find the actual rune to use, of course. The library was filled to the brim with books about, and written in, runes. Harry could not yet read any form of runes. He felt like an infant given a book in a language with letters he couldn't name or sound out.

He wondered if Hermione could help. But she too was a new student of Ancient Runes... Madam Pince would be no use. She already wanted to throw Harry out. What a dried heart didn't beat in her chest.

X-X-X

Hermione didn't have to drag Harry to the Gryffindor family room this evening. While it was Saturday night and the end of the first week of classes, she had people lining up for the first lecture of her series. She had struck early with the first one. She'd probably spent all summer lining up speakers, Harry thought.

She had never seemed so pleased or so calm, in an overall sense. She had been nervy earlier about who would show up and if the lecture would go off. But she wasn't nattering on about books. She was more interested in what certain people might tell her, specifically things that didn't get written down and handed about.

She stood at the front of the front of the room next to an old man and a slightly younger one. Both were older than Professor Snape or their new Defense teacher, an Auror called Proudfoot.

The older of the two was taller than Harry would ever manage and had hair that was as dark as Padfoot's. So he was hale even at his age, though his face was lined like some pen and ink illustration in a book. He stood very straight and tall and had a glance that said he was stern.

Hermione took a step forward to settle the room and introduce him. The man laid a hand on her shoulder and smiled at her. Hermione took her seat at the front. Harry had tried for the front this time, but had arrived only early enough to get the third row. The room was filled with a few standing in the back and several at the sides. Mr. Weasley's talk last year had set expectations high, with all of the secrets of the Ministry he'd discussed.

"My name is Oliver Fanthorpe Sundown," the old man said. He spoke in a loud, clear voice, neither Hagrid-booming nor Flitwick-thin.

"I graduated as a Gryffindor about eighty-five years ago. I fought in a war in France, the Netherlands, and Germany. I served in the Ministry for many years. But I spent the last forty some years competing on the dueling circuit and serving as a referee. I retired as a duelist eighteen years ago and as a professional referee three years ago."

Harry was still surprised that Hermione had selected a duelist for the first class. It was brilliant, Harry thought. Hermione would have every male Gryffindor who didn't attend tonight kicking himself. Though she'd probably have something that would appeal more to the girls for the next class.

"Tonight, I came to teach you some things about dueling that you may not know and certainly won't learn from books. A duel is not all about settling matters of honor, first off. It's mostly an entertainment these days. The non-magicals have boxing and other events. We have spectator duels, though they are losing out in popularity to events like Quidditch. So, for your education, I came to show you dueling. I won't ask anyone to volunteer. I brought my own." He nodded to the younger man at the front of the room. "My youngest son, who came with me to assist in a demonstration or two, is called Oliver Bysthorpe Sundown."

The room tittered at the name that was almost identical to his father's.

"Yes, I do come from a very old family. No, I don't follow much tradition, though I couldn't do anything about this damned name Oliver we saddle on all the males in the line."

He stepped up on an elevated stage. "This is a platform, not quite the right size for a professional match. But close. Now we'll erect some shields. We are not using spells to do this. We are using enchanted materials."

Harry watched as the son pulled massive panels of fabric out of a rather small case. It was brilliant how they self-enlarged. Harry wondered what such a thing was, that case – and where he could get one. What all could one stuff inside it? Just these panels or other things...

The father and son assembled the cloth panels at the back of the stage, the sides, then the front. Harry wondered how he would see anything through the cloth. But when the last panel was up, all the cloth became transparent.

Harry smiled. The more he learned about magic, the more wonderful it was. Though most witches and wizards seemed to have a flair for drama.

"So, let's observe what happens. We'll go through this slowly so you can see and appreciate if you ever make it to a professional duel." The father and son took up positions on either end of the short stage. "The bow. The count. The beginning."

And they proceeded to exchange spells wordlessly and with non-standard wand motions, Harry noticed. It seemed fast, but he saw that both duelists were deliberate and cautious and weren't moving often nor standing completely still.

Harry tried to guess at what the spells were. Stunners and petrifying spells, surely. A disorientation spell. No fireballs, no lightning. No transfiguration, either.

The son ricocheted a spell off the enchanted barriers. The father smiled. They sped up and the spells flew more often and faster.

Harry could barely see the exchanges now.

The son flicked his wand about ten minutes after this demonstration started. The father stepped to the side a few inches, but some force wrenched his wand from his hand and the thin stick of wood flew through the air. The son caught the wand.

Everyone in the room applauded.

Both men bowed to each other, then the son began taking down the enchanted cloth.

The father stepped off the platform.

"That was a short one with the limited rules. No transfiguration. No explosive or blasting spells. It can become considerably more violent, if that's your interest. We chose not to risk damaging this room, which is quite beautiful. Other styles have other rules, of course."

Interesting, Harry thought.

"The different styles of dueling are well covered in the formal dueling codes and other volumes, so we'll skip past them. Perhaps I should tell you about spells to learn and practice? That is also covered in the standard references. I'm sure Hogwarts has copies, even if they are quite dusty and unused. I would rather talk about some things that are less well known."

Harry could see Hermione beaming in the front row. Both of her speakers had followed her instructions and seemed glad to have that brief to fulfill. 'Give away your secrets.'

"Remember how the duel ended? I leaned to one side, but my son had cast a complicated variant of the disarming spell. The beam of light was a distraction and the real spell which hit me was colorless. Yes, people can do this. Study your arithmancy well. It's not required to modify a spell, but it can help."

Harry was glad he was trying magic math, but he wasn't impressed by the first class of arithmancy. It was going to be a bore. Self-teaching again...

"So the first lesson in dueling or fighting or anything: don't get hit. Whether you have the speed and grace to move yourself – or something to duck behind. Magical shields are funny things. And spells can be modified to slip past them. I have a dozen variants of my favorite spells that will."

Hermione was taking notes now at a furious pace.

"The second lesson. The spells you learn from school and your spell books are an excellent place to start. But just because you learn a spell and get good with it doesn't mean you're done with it. Could it be better? Of course it could. If you're a farmer needing to pin down a predator preying on your hens, you'll find the petrifying spell rather poor against creatures, even non-magical ones. You'll need to pay a spell-crafter to change it for you – or learn to do it yourself. There are ten thousand situations where a spell isn't quite right for your needs, whether in a duel or in your daily work. So you'll need to adjust it. Magic is flexible, if you know how to make it flexible."

Harry thought all his effort with his adventuring spells was doing just that. He hadn't intended to adjust them – though perhaps he should – but his familiarity with them allowed him a wider range of applications. Now he would have to stick it out in arithmancy.

The son had finished taking down the shields. He closed the case and sat down on the platform to listen to his father.

"Don't get hit. Don't be pleased just knowing a spell. Work the spells you use until they're easier than breathing, better a spell like that than thirty you can barely pronounce. Modify spells to suit you better. These are my most important lessons and not ones I see emphasized in the dueling literature... I have many other lessons, but perhaps I might know what the students in this room would like to learn about."

Hermione stood. "Thank you, Mr. Sundown. I'll ask the first question. You suggested earlier that the sport of dueling is declining. Could you tell us why?"

Mr. Sundown smiled. "Ahh, the hard question. To that I shall give the honest answer. The Ministry has thrown its support behind Quidditch."

Harry saw quite a few unhappy Gryffindors who thought to defend their favorite sport.

Hermione rushed out the next question, "Does that Ministry support matter?"

"When the Ministry takes on the costs of organizing and promoting a league of private teams, then training and paying referees, yes, I'd say that was significant. For us as duelists, the money raised at the door of a duel pays our costs _if_ the crowd is large enough. The Quidditch team owners have their costs met by tax galleons before the first person walks into a stadium."

Hermione looked stunned. She always had been about fairness, Harry thought.

"Why do they do that?"

"A law. A vote. Someone bribed someone else. One of those or all of them. I didn't notice when it happened and I can't exactly unravel it now," the duelist said.

"Why not change it?" she asked.

"I can give you the technical process – or I can give you my unofficial opinion..."

"The latter, please," Hermione said.

"The Ministry likes the situation they have now. They would prefer witches and wizards to sit in wooden stands rooting for a few fliers on brooms, heroes in the sky. They prefer this to a hundred or more trained duelists, as in the golden period of my youth, showing off their accomplishments with magic."

"But why?"

Untrained wizards were better than trained ones, Harry pondered. Sad but probably how some people thought.

"A good question. One I shall leave you to debate." He smiled. He had an answer he preferred not give. "I will answer another instead: do I hate Quidditch? No, I do not hate Quidditch. I played on the Gryffindor team as a youth. My granddaughter enjoys watching a game," he pointed to a witch in the room. A Fifth year, Harry thought. "But if Quidditch succeeding comes at the cost of dueling failing, well, I'm against it."

All the more strange that Harry would be playing Quidditch at Hogwarts this year when he wasn't sure it was a good idea. Try telling that to Oliver Wood, though.

"But how do you _know_?" Hermione asked. She was getting fairly upset.

"The Ministry isn't a subtle thing. Sure, subtle people work there to adjust things to their advantage. But something only lasts at the Ministry, and gets funding year after year, if it has a considerable amount of support from many kinds of people. Dueling is meant to die along with the skills that a duelist possesses and hones. That's why I have come to tempt more of you into this activity – and perform well at it. See? We all have hidden motives. I leapt at this opportunity to talk to all of you – that and to see my granddaughter who visits all too infrequently."

The girl in question shook her head, but this seemed to be a frequent comment from Mr. Sundown.

Hermione looked around the room. "Anyone have a question?" She really was shaken.

A seventh year named Quentin Ardor stood. "I'd like to know how I can see a duel over the Yule break or during the next summer."

Harry listened as Mr. Sundown explained about the scheduling. He also offered to supply a list to duels to Hermione who could post it for any and all Gryffindors. "Although some may arise after the schedule is printed. Certain venues open up. Or certain promoters will announce things late. There is this Frenchman named Delacour who never manages to meet a deadline, but he throws a good tournament."

Fred Weasley stood next. "Could we have a dueling tournament for students at Hogwarts? Or maybe just Gryffindors?"

"If someone wished to start something, I would be happy to advise."

"I can look into what it takes," Hermione said, scribbling yet another note.

"I think I might enjoy learning how to do it." Fred sat down again.

"Better he plays games on a platform than pranks everyone around him," Neville muttered to Harry.

"Too right," Harry said.

Some others asked about Mr. Sundown's tips for specific spells. These were invariably fifth or seventh year students so they must have been thinking about their OWLs or NEWTs.

Finally Hermione stood again and thanked both of the Sundowns. They allowed their pleasure to show on their faces. It was clear they thought they might just have done something for the sport they loved. Harry wouldn't mind watching a duel, not at all.

"A few brief announcements, if you wouldn't mind," Hermione said.

A few people huffed and sat down. No one left.

"Sir Nicholas, our house ghost, asked if he could give a lesson on goblins. He's very unhappy about what Binns keeps saying. Celestina Warbeck, the singer, will give a class on pursuing a career in the arts. She's also something of a painter, I'm told. We have a Healer coming in to give us a lesson on potions, specifically the things we should have learned in Potions class but haven't. For the boys, we have a rather interesting wizard coming in who hunts wand core and potions ingredients from wild creatures like dragons and graphorns."

A cheer went up at this and Harry's voice was among them.

"Just a moment longer. I had more responses than I expected. We will also have our door-keeper, who I refuse to address as the Fat Lady, instruct us on traditions and manners."

Really? Harry had never thought to talk to that portrait...but he'd been learning so much from his family portraits. The topic sounded a bit weak for Harry's interests, but he planned to attend. The Fat Lady might have more to say than just matters of tradition, which Harry had once been interested by but had now spent a portion of the summer learning about from family portraits. He didn't feel so lost.

"We have an enchanter coming, someone who has created both brooms and those beautiful ever-living roses in glass balls. Since we had a talk on dueling, I thought we should have one on Quidditch as a career so we have three professional players coming for that meeting."

Ron cheered as did several others, though not Harry.

"I do have more to finalize. I will post the details of the next class on the board, but feel free to ask me about future ones. The dates move around a little, especially Madam Warbeck's, but I think we'll have a good year."

Hermione couldn't have been happier having people appreciate her hard work. Harry felt so proud of her. She really had spent her summer organizing this.

X-X-X

The next day, Harry woke early. He got dressed and Ron and Neville were still asleep. He didn't see Hermione in the common room. Harry walked to the Great Hall and they weren't serving yet. Harry settled on a walk.

He also needed to buy a watch that worked. He took off the one he wore and tucked it into his pocket. There had to be a store that sold watches via owl order. Or... Wait, he got to go to Hogsmeade this year. He had already figured the place out in the summer after his first year so it wasn't a great mystery. But they did sell watches there.

And boys took girls there, too. Something to think about for later.

Harry discovered he wasn't alone on the grounds. It wasn't Hagrid or anyone he recognized. "Hello," Harry said.

"Morning, Potter."

Harry stopped immediately. How did this man know who he was?

"Don't mind me."

"Are you looking for Lestrange and Rookwood?" Harry asked.

"I'm counting windows in Hogwarts..."

Of all the possible answers... "Counting windows?"

"There is something in there. Something we cannot find in any ordinary room. So we're assessing where hidden rooms might be."

"You're starting from the outside, counting windows. Then you'll make sure the count matches when you're inside," Harry said.

"Right."

"What if that doesn't work..."

"I don't know that it will. But if it fails, we can get a bit more tricky..."

"Can I help for a while?" Harry asked.

"I'm told you already did. Found a diary, didn't you?"

Harry stepped back. "How did you know?"

"I'm looking for the others, of course."

"More diaries?"

"Could be anything really."

"So how will you know?"

"One piece can lead us to the others. We built a detector of sorts. One item is here somewhere. With the wards and all the students, it's a trick to figure out exactly where. Magic like this isn't a simple spell."

Why was this man telling Harry? Sure, Harry had found the diary, but he didn't need to know the rest of it.

"Question you want to ask, Mr. Potter?"

"I think the less I know, the less danger I'm in, really."

"I doubt that."

"From you. From whoever you're working with."

"We'd be of a mind to recruit you in the future. Complete a mastery of some type and we'd be more interested."

What in the world... "So this was an interview?"

"You've been interviewed several times by people who are known to us. Some of the reports are positive. Others not. That's how it should be. Anyone who gets unanimous support is buying votes and that triggers a whole different set of protocols."

"What if I don't want to be interviewed?" Harry asked.

"If we want you, we'll ask. You can say no. Many do the first time. I didn't join up until the third invitation when I was in my late twenties. It's interesting work. Though finding a small thing in a castle this size is giving me fits, Mr. Potter. This isn't a typical project, not at all."

Right. Harry didn't have any idea what this man was on about. He would report it to someone, though. A crazy man on the grounds.

"I have to go now," Harry said.

"Yeah, I said something similar at the end of my first talk like this. It'll all make sense later."

No, it wouldn't. Harry loved magic, but some of the people must have their brains go soggy from being around too much of it.

Harry would pen a letter to Sirius later. He saw McGonagall as she made her way into the Great Hall for breakfast. Harry told her what had happened. Her response: 'I shall inform the Headmaster.'

She was little help, which was service as usual. Glorified secretary...

Harry should have just waited for Headmaster Flamel.

Harry sat at breakfast and looked at the tables. No Slytherins. A few Ravenclaws. All the Hufflepuffs were done. It was stupidly early in the morning and on a Sunday. Why were they all up? Some secret Hufflepuff society or something. Harry just didn't know.

He thought about Mr. Weasley's talk the previous year. Specifically about his suggestion of working with the Hufflepuffs who dominated the Ministry. They were a tight group, the Puffs in Harry's year. Good at keeping their secrets, Harry guessed.

Why, Harry wondered. Why were they so tight? What about being in a particular house helped them to be that way? Perhaps working with them started with understanding them.

So...how?

Harry had three classes with students from Hufflepuff. Herbology, Magical Creatures, and Arithmancy. Two of them were his new classes this year. So, otherwise it would have just been one class. And he only had all of Hufflepuff in one of those classes.

So the school schedule tried to keep Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs apart. Strange that. It was probably some tradition or a provision in some law or other. The petty things wizards did to hurt each other or repay slights...

Harry finished eating and decided to return to his walk outside. It was too nice to rush back to the tower on a day where he didn't even have classes.

Some time later, Harry was standing by the edge of the forest looking back at Hogwarts, trying to count the windows. That strange man earlier had put quite the story in Harry's head. Count the windows and find a cursed object. Ridiculous – or not?

Peeves was up there somewhere, wasn't he? Maybe Harry could do something about Peeves for his public project in Runes. Harry had heard that banishing ghosts was a dangerous business, but was it possible to repel them in some way?

Harry looked back to Hogwarts. He was excited for the year. He started to walk back to meet up with his friends. How would he fill this Sunday? He had finished his summer homework already...

He didn't make it to the castle as he planned.

Harry didn't feel the man knock him down, though he did feel the pain of the knife-slice. It wasn't immediate that pain, but gradual. Harry kicked and fought, but the powerful man held him down to the ground.

He looked like hair sprouted from every part of his face, neck, and hands. All his exposed skin was covered in a thick mat of hair.

"Quiet, boy."

He sounded like he was from Ireland.

"You know me, don't you? I'm not even from County Cork. Don't know why they call me the Wolf from Bandon..."

Harry had been attacked by a werewolf, the one who'd escaped Azkaban. Sirius had talked about him. Harry felt... Harry felt... He tried to reach for his wand. He couldn't find it. Where was it?

"I never killed those ones I went to prison for. I never did," he shouted. "I never attacked no one. Never did. All this hair, though. Can't hold a job. People can't even stand to look at me. It weren't safe for me, nowhere I went. A were like me, it's easy to say, "there, that's the one" and the Aurors came for me plenty of times. This last time they said I killed. I never did. I never would..."

He refused to look at Harry.

"I owe you to the man who got me free. So I suppose I will now be a killer. The cost of my freedom. I'm sorry, but it won't change my mind... Don't know you, don't know much about you at all. Boy-Who-Lived...well, you toppled one evil, but what about them Aurors... Never did nothing to them and they're worse than any You-Know-Who. So, thanks. But it wasn't enough. For me own sake, I'll try not to make this hurt. I've never done this before..."

Light flashed from inside the woods and the man, the wolf, jolted and started to bleed. His head fell to the right and his body slumped to the left.

Harry had gray spots in his vision. The knife...the cut. He dabbed at the blood and the ruined fabric of his robe. The cut hurt. "Help."

Someone had killed this man from the forest. Was he coming to help?

Or... what were the other choices?

Harry had to sit up. He had to get himself back into the castle now. He had to walk. He had to run...

The first person Harry came across screamed and ran away. Big help there. The second, however, was a Ravenclaw prefect Harry couldn't name. His eyes became bigger than dinner plates, but he pulled Harry into the castle. Harry passed out as he saw the distant doors of the infirmary.

X-X-X

Harry woke sometime later. His arm ached. He thought of that Harry man had his heart began to race. Was he safe...

Then he looked around. The infirmary.

"Mr. Potter," the matron said.

She inspected him as if he were dying. He wasn't, though. The cut was healed up, too.

The matron noticed where Harry was looking. "How did you wind up with that cut?" she asked.

"I was attacked while out there."

"Attacked, my word." She seemed haunted by memories just then.

A door that Harry couldn't see opened. "Madam Pomfrey, I would like to speak with your patient."

The mediwitch looked to Headmaster Flamel and nodded. "He's comfortable. Please try not to upset him."

The Headmaster made no commitments.

"So, the body of the Wolf of Bandon is on the school grounds. You are in here after being cut. Danger has returned again to Hogwarts against all my best efforts."

"He said he didn't want to kill me. But he had to..."

"Slow down, Harry. Tell me everything. Why were you on the grounds? Please start there."

So Harry did. He told the whole story.

"This should be a place of safety and I feel we have failed you," Headmaster Flamel said.

Harry agreed, but just looked away.

"I didn't see who...attacked him," Harry said. "Just a shadow in the woods."

"I know who it was. I do not know the why, as of yet."

"Who was it professor?"

"The man who killed your attacker was Augustus Rookwood, another of the Azkaban escapees. The wards were quite clear on that."

"But why... And how did either of them get on the grounds?"

"You've been looking into protections?"

"Yes," Harry said.

"The kind of protections available for a private home used to be different from what could be placed on a public structure like this one. I imagine an estate like the Potters had could completely exclude people?"

Harry nodded.

"Hogwarts is a public structure built a long time ago. The wards keep out almost no witches and wizards. They'll keep out different creatures, but wizards can pass through."

"But..."

"The state of warding has changed somewhat over the centuries, but Hogwarts wards are renowned, old, and powerful. Newer ones are thought by some conservative nitwits to have a deleterious effect on the old ones. So, basically, we can't upgrade because some old men are afraid. The way things always go."

So anyone could come onto the grounds... Some protection. "What should I do?" Harry asked.

"I've no doubt you're more wary now."

"Yes."

"So stay in groups. Continue the training you've done with self-defense spells. And we shall see what we can do to tighten things up with the protections. It's hard because we do have others on the grounds, especially during Quidditch weekends. But we cannot keep out the Governors or the parents of students or Ministry employees, among others."

"But you can keep Rookwood out? And Lestrange?"

"Yes, if we have the names of certain individuals, we can ban them from the castle. I just couldn't secure permission until this happened. Three Azkaban escapees and the Board didn't wish to invoke the wards... I'm disgusted with many of them. Albus was rather foolish not to do so during the last war, so none of the Board are used to how it works. I think I'll manage to restart the practice."

"So I'm safe here?" Harry asked.

"Well, you're safe from two people entering the castle, Mr. Potter. The ground as more tricky. I think we both know you have more troublemakers in your life than that."

"Right." Harry thought of that odd man on the ground before the attack. So he mentioned the conversation and what the man looked like. "Was he part of it?"

"I know him. He works for the Ministry. An eager sort, but not very cautious. I doubt he was involved." Still, the Headmaster looked very displeased.

"But what was he talking about? Invitations..."

"A fool's lot to mention it to you now. A clever fool that boy. It's an option for you when you're older – but only if you're interested."

"It's a real job?"

Flamel shrugged. "You're too young, by far, to see which way you'll go..."

"I'm not," Harry almost snapped. He hated being called too young.

"You wish to study the esoteric?"

Harry shrugged.

"As I said, too young. You would do well there, if it fit your other plans. But only if it was something of interest."

"And what was it called?"

"The Department of Mysteries. Now file it away and forget it. If you become useful to them, they'll be in touch. An odd bunch in recent centuries, secretive."

"They work for the Ministry?" Harry asked.

"They work out of the Ministry. It's hard to say who they work for. I have contacts there, but I doubt I hear everything. They're secretive, remember?"

Harry smiled. "What about the Ministry? One of their escapees was here – and he was killed by another. What will the Ministry do?"

"I've reported what happened."

"And?"

"Give them five weeks to decide."

So slow. "What do you think?"

"Based on their usual pattern? They'll do something dumb, then do more of it until it finally works... Now if the smarter option is to replace the Dementors with Aurors, I'd say the Ministry will send more Dementors and no Aurors."

Harry was aghast. "If they haven't worked so far, why are they sending more of them?"

"I've known the British Ministry to have some sense, but it's not often and it's not continuous over the decades. Right now, the Ministry is led by lackwits who believe themselves competent, perhaps the most dangerous sort of wizard and witch."

"Right," Harry said.

"Again, my apologies. I had thought to do more here. While the English haven't manage to replace me yet, they have neatly organized to oppose good sense things I propose - and merely because I propose them. I fear I am making some situations worse by the fact of my birth nationality. Morons."

Morons indeed, Harry agreed.

X-X-X

Neville led the group through the hall. He seemed taller, happier. He was transformed almost completely from the boy Harry had known for the previous two years. What had really happened on the Hogwarts Express? And what spells had Professor Flamel used on him?

Harry's eyes scanned the hallway ahead of him. He was always scanning now, always a bit on edge. He'd been attacked twice this year.

He had tied the handle of his wand to a string and fastened the other end around his wrist. If something strange happened now he would be ready.

"I can't believe I'm saying it, but I'd rather be staring at a bunch of stars," Ron said.

Harry agreed. But they'd had Astronomy last week. This was the second week of classes, so Harry and the others had the Culture part of the revised Astronomy and Culture course.

Harry walked through the door. An older witch, not very tall, though nowhere near as short as Madam Spurl had been, was dressed in pink. She stood at the front of the class. She had a very firm, very false smile on her face. Harry was something of an expert in false smiles from living in Little Whinging with his relatives.

This professor didn't often dine in the Great Hall. Harry knew she was called Professor Umbridge and he had heard bad things about her from several sources including Professor Flamel.

To Harry's surprise, Professor Flamel was also present, seated in the back of the room.

Harry sat and took out parchment and quill to take notes. He assumed this would be a lecture. The Ravenclaws had already taken the seats at the front of the room.

"Good morning, class," the witch said.

Was she talking to rather silly poodles?

"Good morning," some of them responded.

She seemed displeased. But the professor had her eyes on her visitor at the back of the room.

"This is your class on wizarding culture and traditions. My name is Professor Umbridge. I descend from the Noble House of Selwynn..."

Professor Flamel cleared her throat.

Professor Umbridge pursed her lips.

It was rather like watching the secret events that started a long war.

"Hem, hem. I will talk about the course aims today and spend a little time on our first topic. I should note that I have not been able to find an...acceptable textbook for the course, so please do take notes. I will assign essays, of course. There is no OWL exam at the Ministry at this time, but I dare say there will be in two more years. Questions?"

No, Harry thought. But his head hurt from listening to her sickly sweet voice. She was rather like that witch in the children's story, Hansel and Gretel. Did Professor Umbridge own a house made out of candy and an oven large enough to roast a child? Harry thought it likely.

"Now, the most important topic is that of your houses. Not your Hogwarts houses, but the house of your birth. There are a few Ancient and Noble Houses remaining, but there are few. Then there are the Noble Houses...

Professor Flamel stood up and walked to the front of the class. "This was not a topic on the approved syllabus," Professor Flamel said.

"Those were suggested topics. I am, as the instructor, permitted to add."

Professor Flamel did not agree. "Perhaps, Professor Umbridge, you might discuss why we needed to resurrect the culture class at all?" Professor Flamel said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Or something about the history of Hogwarts, how classes have changed over time?"

"I wasn't aware that they had."

Professor Flamel didn't seem surprised at that. "Well, can you inform the class when Astronomy became a core class for the first five years?"

"To my knowledge..."

"Yes, your knowledge."

As if she had none.

"Your knowledge is a relevant topic for the day. Tell us about how Astronomy went from an elective to a core class."

"I'm afraid that such a thing never happened, Professor."

"It's not a change that originated at Hogwarts. I thought you were formerly with the Ministry for Magic."

"I had that honor."

"Tell us about Minister Bolger."

"Minister Who?"

"Minister Bolger, a great fan of astrology, regretted how few astrologers he could consult. So he proposed a law that Hogwarts train students in astronomy for more years in the hope that some of them might consider becoming astrologers..."

"What a ridiculous story."

Harry didn't think so. He'd never wondered about why he studied astronomy until today. As he considered the question, Harry found he couldn't quite determine why. He didn't use his star- and planet-knowledge in any of his other classes, did he?

"Tell us about the specialties Hogwarts used to teach. Some of our students specialized in rune-based courses, others in the wanded subjects, and some in potions, herbs, and the healing arts. There were some other electives, like divination, but all students were able to specialize in what would serve them best. Though some were generalists, of course."

"No. I've never heard of this."

"The Ministry ended this tradition, too. It means Hogwarts no longer teaches enough Runes to its students to have a course in enchanting, a topic that is now a few lessons in the NEWT years. It means Hogwarts no longer teaches a course on Healing or covers many of the spells in Charms. Care to share why?"

"I'm sure these things never happened. The Ministry wouldn't harm its children as you're proposing."

The professor seemed to enjoy denial in all its forms. It was very uncomfortable to watch all of this, but Professor Flamel was making a point that Harry hadn't quite grasped in all of its complexities. She wanted to challenge the professor, of course. She did it by pointing to examples of Ministry interference at Hogwarts. She had succeeded at making the professor very angry and muddying what little reputation the Ministry possessed.

"Class, I think we're done for the day. Back up your belongings. We won't waste your time with the topics Madam Umbridge was interested in discussing. Houses..." Professor Flamel shool her head. "The class is on wizarding culture and traditions, not those of a few houses..."

"Class is certainly not dismissed," Professor Umbridge said, as the students were packing up.

"Off you go."

Harry left, but he hung around outside the open classroom door. The row between the professors were interesting and baffling. Some of the topics Harry had never heard of. Still Hermione was positioned in front of a wall scribbling with her quill. She was trying to catch all of the topics for later research, Harry was sure.

"Students, please return. Now. Students..."

"No, that is it, Madam Umbridge. I will not allow you to spread your ignorance in this class."

"I was hired by the Board of Governors..."

"Yes, they hired you to teach a set curriculum. Teach it and we'll have no troubles."

"It is not adequate."

"The Board approved it."

"Well, I will be speaking to the Board then."

"Until they change their mind, you will teach the topics on the syllabus. I will sit in the back of your class and make sure you do."

"You cannot. That's...that's interference."

"You don't have a track record as a teacher. I'd call it mentoring. It's actually done quite often at schools with larger faculties. Why the Board insists on running Hogwarts with such a small staff, I don't know," Professor Flamel said.

Madam Umbridge made to storm away.

"You won't be paid, Madam Umbridge."

That got her attention. "I can't help that you ended my class early. I was prepared to teach a full lesson."

"It's nothing to do with me. _You_ haven't signed your contract."

"I was hired by the Board of Governors. You can't withhold my pay because you dislike my appointment. You also can't dismiss me."

"That is correct. The Headmaster cannot dismiss someone appointed by the Board of Governors who shows up and teaches their assigned classes. A new bylaw, it seems, passed shortly before they voted on your appointment for this class."

"See."

"However, we also are not permitted to pay anyone who hasn't signed a contract. So your lesson today has earned you no galleons. Nor any of the work you've done since the first of the month. We're not allowed to backdate your pay."

"What..."

"That's a very old bylaw proposed by one of your distant ancestors, a Cambric Selwynn, if memory serves."

Umbridge turned about the color of her own jacket. "Give it here."

"I would advise you to read it first."

The culture professor inked a quill and signed. Immediately she dropped the quill and began twitching. Harry could see the sweat forming on her face.

Professor Flamel rolled up the contract. She stared at the students who were still gathered in the hallway. "Miss Brown, would you mind fetching the Mediwitch from the Infirmary? It seems Madam Umbridge will need substantial care. For the rest of her life."

Professor Flamel unrolled the contract and looked at it. "I knew she was up to no good. This contract has proved it."

Harry watched the unpleasant woman twitch and sweat. She toppled over then and twitched on the floor.

"Let that be a lesson in culture, students. Study your magical contracts before you sign them."

Harry had never heard the term 'magical contract' before, but he was sure it was now on his list of necessary things. He could see Hermione underline the words three times on her parchment, too.

"Your former professor here – for she will never be suited to teach again, and when she fails to show up to her next few classes she can be dismissed for non-performance – has made a poor showing of the topic. I'll find you a better one or I'll teach the class myself. Please don't fear another appointment like this."

When this story got out, Harry doubted they'd have any applicants for the job, not if the contract was this onerous.

"The Board rarely asserts its prerogative to name professors, for if they don't work out, those who vouched for the quality and trustworthiness of the appointee traditionally resign their seats. That is one tradition that will continue. Madam Umbridge's supporters will soon be gone, which means we'll have a clean Board. So, please ignore today's lesson, students. We'll give you better tuition soon enough."

None of them would forget, of course. This was soon to become a major legend of the school. Don't anger Professor Flamel...

Harry tried to reason it out. Professor Flamel knew from the first moment she stepped in the door – no, from the moment she drew up that contract – that she would do this to Professor Umbridge.

Harry wondered about the other teachers… Maybe this was why Professor Snape wasn't as bad last year as he was in Harry's first year. A contract with severe penalties. Professor Snape was likely to read something before signing it. He was unpleasant, not stupid.

"What punishment did the contract exact on her?" Hermione asked.

"Ah. It's from the original form of Hogwarts contract, not the one in most recent use. It simply guarantees that a professor has the student's needs well in mind."

"So she didn't?"

"She intended to remain here, in disgrace, until she could claw her way back into the Ministry, I've no doubt. She intended to poison many minds and teach the things she found interesting, not the things you needed to learn."

"And the punishment?" Harry asked.

"Her magic is owed to Hogwarts for her slackness towards its students. I said it was the old form of contract. How do you think the protections here, as mysterious as they sometimes are, became as formidable as they are when under genuine states of warfare?"

Hermione shook her head.

"One version of the legendary feud between Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin holds that Salazar changed his mind about many things and became a danger to the students. The contract then in force for all the teachers killed him to protect the students."

"So she'll die?" Hermione asked, horrified at the implications for Madam Umbridge.

"No person should ever present herself to a school and not intend to teach for the benefit of the students. She worked at the Ministry for a time and knew about magical contracts. She should have read it, declined it, and left the school. That was her path to safety. She chose otherwise."

The Gryffindors were ready to leave. Watching the pink woman on the floor twitch was horrible. No, this wasn't a lesson they would forget.

"Mr. Potter?" Professor Flamel asked.

"Yes."

"Could you stay a moment?"

Harry looked to Hermione. "It's okay."

Neville was the one who asked, "Are you sure?"

Professor Flamel was very old, sometimes look a little frail (but not always), but she was the boogeyman today.

"I won't sign anything, I promise." Harry smiled a smile he didn't feel.

He walked into the room.

"Your friends can look in if they wish. I've put up a spell to keep our words private. I thought you were curious about the Dementors that attacked you on the train."

Harry walked a little faster. Yes, he was interested in anyone or anything that meant him harm.

Before they could speak, Madam Pomfrey arrived, took a look at Madam Umbridge, and floated her out of the room. She didn't even have to ask what the problem was. Maybe this wasn't the first violation of the teacher's contract she had seen... After all, Harry hadn't seen Mr. Filch in some time. Curious.

Contracts, magical contracts. This was the kind of thing they needed to learn in a culture class. _Don't sign a contract without reading it_. It was common sense in the Muggle world, but here it was many times worse. Madam Umbridge might not have been a good teacher, but she provided an unforgettable lesson.

"Mr. Potter?"

Harry turned from where Madam Pomfrey had been with her new patient. "Yes, Professor."

"I looked into the damage you managed upon that Dementor."

"Yes?"

"A lesser fire spell, perhaps it would falter next to the intensity of the cold a Dementor can wield. Your spell did not falter. It is still burning. I'm told the Dementor is beginning to turn to ash."

"It's been burning all this time? It's been almost two weeks."

"The Sunfire spell is an uncommon one these days. You may proved something about it, namely that if it attacks something magical, it continues to feed on the new magic rather than extinguish itself."

"But..."

"Now I have not seen that referenced in any description of that spell."

Nor had Harry.

"You've discovered, possibly, a new and messy way of bringing down the protections of a home. If Sunfire can actually survive on another source of magic, then it could be used as a wardbreaker. They exist now, but they are huge, ungainly constructions. Heavy, complicated to carve, and not easy to calibrate. If there was a single spell that could eat through magic in an otherwise protected home... If you'll think through the consequences, you'll see why I ask you to keep this development to yourself."

Harry felt shivers down the back of his neck. "Yes, Professor."

"That doesn't mean you should stop developing it. By all means you need all the protection you can get. Just think through who you tell and what you reveal. The Ministry, of course, will say nothing about a Dementor that seems to be dying. They are eagerly studying it and terrified at the same time."

"Why haven't they come to question me about what I did?" Harry asked.

"I may have removed that particular piece of knowledge from a few minds. The fire burning in the Dementor is recorded as coming from an unknown wand and being of an unknown spell. So they might try to figure out who...however, it's not actually illegal to attack or kill a Dementor. No one ever thought it possible. Let's keep things quiet, shall we?"

"Thank you, Professor."

Harry didn't want to think of what a spell like Sunfire might have done to the protections of Godric's Hall. Something had burned the Hall to the ground. Was it another spell? He'd heard something about a spell called Fiendfyre, a curse flame.

This news made Harry more aware of a possible problem with home protections. How many ways were there to break wards on a home? Certain spells, wardbreakers... Now maybe a (not so) simple spell called Ignis Solis.

He needed to start writing these things down. He was going to forget something at the rate he was going.

"Thank you, Professor."

"Off you go, Mr. Potter."

X-X-X

Harry sat next to Ron at a desk in the common room. He had been working on his Arithmancy until the twins came in complaining about Auror Proudfoot's Defense class. The man was still advising everyone to forget most, if not all, of what Madam Spurl taught them the year before. "Illegal the worst of it. Highly regulated most of the rest. Did she want all of you to get arrested?" George asked, doing the Professor's particular style of speech.

The twins were thinking of pranks for the Professor/Auror.

Ron suggested cursing him to belch slugs.

Harry suggested something a bit more clever. Perhaps the man who dressed in browns and blacks should dress like their former professor of wizard culture. In pinks.

Fred and George laughed, but looked like they were considering it.

"Next weekend is a Hogsmeade weekend," Fred said. Well, Harry was fairly sure it was Fred.

"Are you excited?" George asked.

"I am," Ron said.

Neville, who was at the next desk, shrugged.

"I've been," Harry said.

"How?"

"When" Which twin said which word, Harry wasn't sure.

"It's a secret." Harry had wandered there many a summer day after his first year at Hogwarts.

"Prove it."

So Harry explained a few of his favorite stores. "Hogsmeade's a fun place, but not worth dreaming about for a week."

"Well, I guess you should invite a girl to make it interesting," Fred (maybe) said.

Those two needed different haircuts or something. They kept moving around, switching places. They also needed non-matching clothes. They did all this on purpose.

"A pretty girl," George said.

"Maybe even our sister."

They were trying to make Harry blush or stammer or flee.

"Okay," Harry said. "I'll invite a girl."

"What?" Ron asked.

"What?" Fred asked.

"What?" George asked.

"I'll invite a girl to go to Hogsmeade with me," Harry said. He hoped this story didn't make it back to Padfoot. No, better Harry reveal this himself sometime.

"Well, who?" Fred (maybe) asked. "You have a thing for Lavender? Or Parvati?"

"I think I'll invite a Hufflepuff," Harry said.

"Why?" Ron asked, aghast.

Harry thought some of them were nice. He also remembered what Mr. Weasley had said the year before. Hufflepuffs usually kept to themselves. The world might be a different, or better, place if Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs (and perhaps even others) mixed more.

No one else seemed to be making the effort. Everyone in Gryffindor had heard his suggestion, but no one was making an effort.

"Why not?" Harry asked. He returned to his arithmancy and ignored the twins, which made for a mild, but effective prank. Harry suspected he would pay for it later, the way his luck ran.

X-X-X

If a Gryffindor asking a Hufflepuff to go to Hogsmeade was hard, and it was, then actually taking a Hufflepuff to Hogsmeade was close to impossible. All of Hufflepuff, save for the first and second years, had invited themselves along when Harry and Susan Bones left Hogwarts. None had gone early. None were waiting until later.

It was awkward to say the least. "So are you enjoying Professor Babbling's class?" Harry asked.

They didn't share the same period, but she was taking it with the Slytherins.

"Yes," Susan said.

Then a fourth year girl Harry thought was called Carmen waxed on about Runes and her project the prior year, which was the design for a set of magical fenceposts to keep her crups from leaving her family's property. A useful thing that. Still, Harry would rather hear from Susan.

This wasn't the first time this had happened on the walk, which now seemed to stretch forever. He had heard from a boy called Cedric, a Quidditch player. He'd heard from the Head Boy, Rufus Summerwell, the one who beat out Ron's older brother. He'd heard from a girl who might have been called Alice or Elise or something. He really didn't know many of these students, but they all seemed interested in Harry. Even the Hufflepuff boys in Harry's year were playing along with this game. Until today, Harry had thought that Justin wasn't a bad bloke. Now, though...

"I thought the meal last night was particularly nice. I love roast chicken," Harry said, grasping for a topic of mutual interest.

"I liked it, too," Susan said.

Then a boy Harry didn't know at all launched into a story about his favorite chicken dish which involved oranges, tomatoes, and olives. Such a thing would never have graced the table at Number Four Privet Drive.

Harry just smiled.

What was the magic question Harry had to ask to get Susan to talk? Most questions he asked got someone else talking. Was he taking one girl to Hogsmeade or about seventy older boys and nearly as many older girls? This had to be illegal somehow.

He tried not to get frustrated. Maybe the way to making friends with one Puff was making friends with them all.

"Did you do anything nice for the summer?" Harry asked. Maybe this topic would work.

"Oh, yes. I visited my friend Hannah several times and we went to London."

There were three others who chimed in after. A story about the Isle of Skye (interesting, but not somewhere Harry planned to go), another about Rue Magique in Paris (nice, and a place Harry might like to go), and a final story about climbing various sets of mountains in Ireland and Wales looking for augurey shell (nope).

Harry kept his fake smile firmly in place. This was a disaster. It was the biggest house at Hogwarts and they worked in lock-step. No wonder no one outside Hufflepuff dated a Puff.

"So, have you read any good books?" It was a pitiful question. Susan wasn't Hermione, after all.

"Not recently."

Harry did receive a few recommendations from the others. Then they arrived in Hogsmeade, finally. Some of the people veered off to do other things. Or perhaps chaperone other people. Or drive others to madness while smiling and being friendly.

They didn't all leave, though. Harry and Susan had about eight other Puffs walking with them even when they went into small stores for new quills or a few potions ingredients. Harry steered clear of that tea shop with all of the lace. Harry looked for, but couldn't find, a new watch he liked. Maybe he'd give Sirius the idea - or buy one himself during Yule break.

Once Susan indicated she was hungry, which was confirmed by the hunger of at least three of their minders, Harry led everyone to the Three Broomsticks. The tables there wouldn't fit ten, not even two tables pushed together.

So Harry rented a meeting room upstairs. Madam Rosmerta was almost laughing at him. She must know how Hufflepuffs operated.

Harry ordered for them all as a little payback. If they didn't like ham sandwiches and butterbeer, then they should have found something better to do with their Hogsmeade visit.

"Good on ya," Madam Rosmerta said.

Harry returned to the stilted questions of vastly amused Puffs in the room he'd rented. They really weren't letting up. Harry kept his temper, though.

Everyone ate and thanked Harry for the lunch.

Susan still wasn't saying much – so why had she said yes when Harry asked? – and was blushing quite a bit.

Harry had to keep trying. "I like treacle tart. What do you like, Susan?"

"Well, I like an apple if it's sweet. Or maybe some grapes..."

Harry kept looking at her and not the others in the meeting room.

No one else launched into their favorite puddings and cakes.

They did start to laugh, like this had all been a big joke. Harry still kept his temper.

Then they left. Cedric Diggory was last out the door. "Consider the hazing over. They did it to me last year. It's a bad tradition, but who will break one like this? So enjoy the afternoon. No one will bug you too much."

"Err, thanks," Harry said.

He stared at the closed door and the empty table.

"That was awful," Susan finally said. "I didn't know they would do that..."

Harry laughed.

"I'm sorry. I just mentioned that you'd asked, then I had all these volunteers... I've been so embarrassed over all of this. It hasn't been fun for you..."

"But it's getting better," Harry said.

Finally Susan laughed.

Susan smiled. "Thanks for getting everyone lunch."

"Sure." At least Susan was talking now.

"Earlier you asked about Runes?"

"I did."

"Well, I do like it."

"Good."

"I'm thinking about a project on color-shifting shoes. My friend Hannah, who was here earlier, is crazy about shoes. So I thought I'd sketch out how to make shoes that can change colors."

"Nice. I've got a problem with a ghost at the school and Peeves. So I'm looking at something that will repel them."

Susan's eyes went wide.

"Is that hard to do?" Harry asked.

"I don't know. I mean, I've never heard of anything like that."

Harry shrugged. Might as well find out than be left guessing.

"I'm interested in the private projects the Professor mentioned. I met with her once. She pointed me to a couple of books," Harry said. He might not talk about the project itself, but he was proud to be working on it. It was well above his skills at present, but how else did one grow? Aim for the difficult...

"I started something from home, too, but it'll be a while before I can do much," Susan said.

Harry nodded. Maybe he should trust her a little? "I'm looking at what runes used to be on my family's property. It was wrecked a while back, but I found some of the stones over the summer."

"Oh, that is interesting."

Did she mean that? Was she just being nice? Susan was different from the other girls (few as they were) who Harry knew. Hermione almost always meant what she said.

But Susan...

"I've got a family reliquary. My family was a bit too interested in bones, I think, so they made rune-cases for keeping family relics. The one I have was broken in a fire that destroyed the family estate, but I'd like to recreate it maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's silly."

Her family's estate had been attacked, too? Something to think about. Harry wasn't the only one who'd suffered, was he?

"Just as silly as what I'm trying to do. I have some tracings I can barely understand. I use a few spare moments here and there. It makes me feel closer to them, even though I never knew them."

Susan was surprised. Why was everyone surprised by things that seemed common knowledge? Boy-Who-Lived meant Parents-Who-Didn't.

"I think I'd like to rebuild it," Harry said. Maybe that was a bit too much to say?

"Oh, so you'll get the goblins..."

"No, I think I'll do it myself after I know enough."

Susan's eye lids were blinking at a rapid rate. Surprise?

"Why?" she asked.

"It's my family. I should rebuild it." He kept the warnings the Flamels had given him to himself. Those were their stories to share, not Harry's.

"But that's something you hire goblins to do. Or maybe dwarves."

Harry nodded, as if he were clueless. Which he basically was. But not on this. His family had set their own wards. He knew of stories where people paid for wards. He would figure out what his family used and he would do it better this time. His house wouldn't burn and collapse.

Susan moved on to other topics now that she wasn't embarrassed into silence. She was a nice girl.

Eventually the afternoon was almost evening and they had to return before dinner. "You're not going to do that to someone next year?" Harry asked.

"No. Definitely not."

So Harry would watch to see what she actually did next yer.

They walked back and waved at a few of the Puffs. None of them sidled up and invited themselves into the conversation this time.

As Harry chatted away, he realized this day, as strange as it was, was the best prank Harry had ever seen. It had taken more than a hundred people to pull it off. The Weasleys hadn't yet managed that and maybe never would. It was horrible, but it was a little funny now. A very little.

Harry wouldn't give the idea to Fred and George, though. They didn't need anything to aspire to.

X-X-X

It was Thursday just before dark. Harry felt like he'd been beaten with mallets. In truth, he'd just endured a "full-length" Quidditch practice. Apparently the earlier ones had been of the "ease-into-things" variety.

Harry thought he was going to die. Oliver Wood was a Quidditch madman.

"The owners of three Quidditch teams are coming to our first match against Slytherin. Some parents of current students who play in the leagues, at least six, I've heard. Six pros! Then the Minister of Magic himself. All because our new star has been out of view for so long. Reporters, too, I'm sure."

Oh, Merlin.

"Now he turns up on a house Quidditch team and there was a riot for the few public tickets." Oliver was grinning as if someone had handed him a bag of gold bigger than his head.

Harry was not amused. He supposed he had been left alone for the first two years since his return to the wizarding world. But he hadn't had much luck with public exposure this year. He'd been attacked by, and then attacked, a Dementor, which had since burned up. He'd been threatened with death by an escaped prisoner and werewolf, a man who was also now dead. He could use quite a bit less of this sort of attention.

"Then we're going to have a very short match," Harry said.

"No! No, no, no, Harry. We need to look good, give them a good match," Oliver said. "Two hours, no more than three then it gets boring. Can you keep from catching the snitch for that long? We need to run up the score. Slytherin is a tip of rubbish this year. Thugs, all of them, but dumb. We will look so good in comparison and I want to make a professional team..."

Harry sighed.

"Oliver, you make the team or not..."

"Because you're good as a Keeper..."

"That's on you, not Harry. So ease up."

They didn't crack their knuckles or anything else, but they were serious and focused. They hadn't said what they'd do if Oliver persisted. However, when Weasleys made a threat, it worked.

Oliver went a little pale. "Err. Um, Harry, just get the snitch. Quick or not. Okay. No need to risk you with the thugs of Slytherin."

"Sure, Oliver," Harry said. He smiled at Fred and George.

At least Oliver's madness could be reined in a little.

He talked about the rest of the gossip he'd heard. Harry wondered how much would turn out to be true. With all of the little stories Oliver relayed, he almost worked himself back into madness, ordering half a dozen impossible things from folks on the team.

Harry decided to ignore him. Let him Keep. Harry would fly around, which he preferred to actually playing Quidditch as he had with Fred, George, Ron, and whoever else was at the Burrow. When he saw the snitch, he'd dive for it. Period.

Harry just nodded the rest of the lecture. It really was getting late.

Finally Fred and George got up and left. Oliver sputtered, but the never-ending lecture finally ended. He had been saying almost the same thing for quite some time.

Harry walked back to the castle. He'd take a shower there and he needed it. The chasers on the team were just behind him. Harry slowed and let them catch up.

"Hey Angelina, you take Runes, don't you?" Harry asked.

"Sure," she said.

"I've got a year project..."

"Those are fun," Katie said.

"Well, not yet," Harry said.

"It will be," Angelina said. "Talk to Professor Babbling. She'll help. Then she'll do the work for the project. Only for third years. The rest of the time if you want something you have to do it all yourself. And it's not good enough to just copy someone's else rune set out of a book or magazine article. She wants to see that you were thinking."

"Well, I'm trying."

"Okay, what are you doing?"

"I'm being bothered by a ghost and Peeves."

"You are? Which ghost?" Katie asked.

Dumbledore, Harry didn't say. The ghost had been a bit more cautious this year, but he was still trying to talk Harry into Divination. Irritating old man.

"A ghost," Harry said.

"It's embarrassing? I could sic Fred and George on you," Angelina said.

That was a good point. Though Harry thought he could get Peeves to do a few things in exchange for the Fulmenifer treatment. Harry wouldn't enjoy...interacting with Peeves that way, but he would if he had to. "I can sic Peeves on all of you. Trust me."

Angelina stopped walking. "You've got my attention. What exactly are you trying to do, Harry?"

The other chasers stopped, too.

"I want to know about runes that interact with the dead..."

"Banishing a ghost is a really bad idea," Alicia said.

"I know. I just want to repel them. Maybe some runes on something I wear that keeps them away."

"Oh. Oh! That is clever. Hmm, but. Well...," Angelina said as she started working through the possibilities. "When we get to the common room, let me write down a few books for you. I don't know that they have what you need – and they are dry and thick and boring – but they might do the trick."

"Thanks," Harry said. He'd just needed a place to start. He wanted to show Professor Babbling that he was serious about his topic, even if it was probably more advanced than she had intended.

"So is Oliver always like that?" Harry asked.

"He's got two settings," Katie said. "Bad is the normal one. Tonight was worse. We're closing in on a match and he's twelve kinds of crazy over all these rumors."

"How many of them are true?"

"This time?" Alicia asked. "Because of you, I'm guessing they're all true. You kept a low, low profile your first two years here."

Harry frowned and stopped asking questions. He just didn't want to know any more.

X-X-X

Harry felt the mirror buzzing. He said, "Padfoot," then he saw the face of his godfather in the mirror.

"Why are you grinning?" Harry asked.

"I found it."

Harry knew what "it" meant instantly. Padfoot had been looking for it since summer. It was the Book of Family Magics compiled by the Potters.

Harry was glad he was in his little hideaway on the fifth floor so he could have a private conversation.

"Where? How?" Harry asked.

"I can't tell you how many fields the Potters own. Not to mention the plots of clay where your family must have gotten their material to make..."

"Pots?" Harry supplied. "Pots from the potter?"

"Correct. But it wasn't in any of those places."

"Sirius..."

"It was underneath the vault we found at Godric's Hall."

"Underneath? A second story?"

"Just a niche, not big at all. There was a heavy floor stone over top of it. And there were three barrels of coins on top of that. Your family did what they could to keep it secret."

"I guess. Well, what's in it?"

"I'm not a Potter. I can't even touch it..."

Harry closed his eyes. Of course. "Well, maybe at Yule, then?"

"Oh, yes. I wrangled a ticket to your Quidditch match, too."

Harry smiled. "It should be fun."

"I'd be happier if I didn't have to walk through a bunch of Dementors to get on the grounds. I've had enough Dementors in my life."

Sirius didn't talk much about Azkaban, but Harry knew it left its mark.

"I've been working on my Patronus more," Harry said. Every week for at least two hours since Neville had almost been Kissed on the Hogwarts Express.

"Does it have a form yet?"

"No, just a blurry haze."

"Well, keep working on it."

"I will. It's just so...specific. It's only useful against one creature."

"And those creatures surround Hogwarts. Keep working on it, Harry."

"I will. I'm just whinging."

"I know. On my end, I'm running into a bunch of deaf sods when I try to get the Ministry to recall them. Of all the people to listen to, I think I know more about their effects than they do. Still, they're quite 'resolved,' idiots..."

Harry should have remembered how much Sirius hated them.

"Well, the Ministry won't listen. So I'll keep trying the spell." He also had Sunfire in reserve if he needed it. It was a slow death for them, but it also caused immediate fright or pain.

"How are you classes going?" Sirius asked.

"Snape is behaving."

Sirius still had trouble not muttering when he heard something, anything, about Snape teaching children.

"And how is Charms?"

"It's a good class. This year isn't as interesting as last year. But Transfiguration is better."

"Your Defense class?"

"He sticks to the book and doesn't stutter." So better than first year and a distant second to Madam Spurl, if Harry were to rank them.

"So you're still missing that foul little witch?"

"Madam Spurl was great."

"I'm sure." Sirius had a look on his face. A prank? Something. Something that related to Madam Spurl. Hmm...

"And your electives?" Sirius asked.

They chatted for several minutes, but Harry never felt like he was under attack. It was like he had someone helping him. It was a good conversation. It made Harry feel like he belonged to a family, one he'd selected (and that his parents had selected for him) rather than one he'd been born into. He'd like the other kind, of course, but it wasn't available to him now.

Harry disconnected from Sirius as soon as he saw Dumbledore float into the room. Harry had changed rooms twice, both of them worse spaces, and the pesky ghost and Peeves still found him. One couldn't hide from a poltergeist very well. So Harry had moved back to his original spot.

"Ah, Harry," the pale advice-giver said. "I was hoping to find you."

"I'm running late for class."

"I'm sure it won't be a problem."

Had he not cared when he was alive? Probably.

Harry began walking as the Dumbledore-ghost quizzed Harry on his divination class (which he wasn't taking). The ghost also wanted to know what Harry knew about Death Eaters. Harry answered none of the questions.

Dumbledore only left when Harry got to corridors that were more frequently used. The Dumbledore-ghost was still shy of several people.

That was useful to have figured out, but still an irritant. Whenever Harry was using that room, he basically had to leave to get any peace from the ghost. It never seemed to remember what Harry told it. It was more than six months since Harry had first told the ghost he wasn't taking divination. The ghost never remembered - or pretended not to remember. Maybe it was easier for him to badger people if he feigned forgetfulness.

Harry got inside the Gryffindor common room and found a good number of people laughing. Harry took a spot near the wall. Ah, Fred and George Weasley were saying – no, acting out – something.

George said, in a deep false voice, "No, no, no, Heir Malfoy, you bow like this. Remember from last week?"

"Peasant, let's duel," said Fred in a high, squeaky voice that sounded nothing like Draco Malfoy. Still, everyone laughed, including Harry.

"You hit me in the nose and took my wand..."

The room busted into laughter.

"The class is on dirty tricks, Heir Malfoy."

"But fighting like some Muggle...," here Fred's voice went impossibly shrill, then he broke down in laughter.

"How did you get that?" Oliver Wood demanded. "Was any of it true?"

"We heard every word. We've been testing something that allows us to listen in."

"And how did you get it into the room?" Hermione asked.

"Heir Malfoy has deep pockets in his robes. He carried it in for us. It'll lose its magic in another hour and, when he finds it, it's just a bit of rock."

Clever.

"So that was a 'special' class that Malfoy bragged about last year?" Hermione asked, outraged.

"By class, he must mean about five people in a room while he acts like an idiot. Yes," Fred said.

"That...boy."

Harry thought Hermione might have been about to use a much stronger word.

All her efforts to give Gryffindor what she thought they were missing... "Are you going to stop?" Harry asked after he walked over to her.

"Stop? No way. I've learned more from some of those lectures than I have from whole Hogwarts subjects."

History, Astronomy... Yeah, Harry could see that.

"Do it again," Ron called out. "Act out the part with Malfoy getting hit!"

And that brought the party to an end. A joke told once could be funny. A joke told twice...

Poor Ron.

X-X-X

"Are you sure they won't cancel?" Angelina asked.

Oliver looked out the door to the pitch, frowned, and shrugged. "This is not what I was hoping for."

Quidditch in a deluge.

This wasn't what Harry expected when he'd agreed to play Seeker.

The officials, of course, didn't call the match off, not with this particular crowd in residence. They were allowed to use weather proofing charms. The players weren't, as it might constitute interference with the match.

So Harry mounted his broom and took flight when his name was announced.

It was miserable. First, there was rain.

It was overcast and no one could see well. And the rain was like walls made of water.

Of course it got worse.

Next, there was lightning.

So the darkness problem went away for a fraction of a second because of the lightning. Then Harry was left blinking and unable to see well.

Of course it got worse still when Dementors flooded the sky above the Quidditch pitch. No one had told Harry they could fly...

Harry had one hand on the broom and had another on his wand. But the Dementors weren't after him.

He went lower to the ground. They were clustering above and near someone on the ground, right in the center of the Quidditch pitch.

They were after a witch who was firing spells into the stands. Harry supposed they were after Bellatrix Lestrange, the Azkaban escapee. She must be as crazy as her reputation to do such a thing on this rotten day.

Harry rose up in the air to get away from the spell casting. Something tugged at him though and he flew off his broom into the Forbidden Forest. He cast a slowing spell he hadn't practiced much. It didn't matter, there was already a cushioning spell in place. Landing didn't hurt much at all, but that did nothing for his anxiety.

With the weather and the crazy woman on the pitch, no one could have seen him disappear. Harry looked around. He had no idea exactly where he was.

The man stepped on Harry's hand and snapped Harry's wand.

Harry cried out.

"I've gone to considerable efforts to arrange this. I didn't count on this weather, but there was nothing more perfect for my needs."

He pulled a fearsome knife. It glinted as it caught the reflection of lightning in the sky.

Rookwood...

"You killed the Wolf of Bandon...," Harry said.

Harry was trying to understand. His mind couldn't do anything else. His wand was broken. He carried no knife or other weapon.

"The other escapee is on the pitch. There are a hundred qualified wizards there... They'll kill her. They were your friends."

"A Death Eater has no friends, Potter. He has orders."

From Voldemort...

The man remained on Harry's hand, but he knelt toward Harry's head. That knife. It flicked out... Harry expected a slash of his throat.

But no.

Rookwood held something wet in his hand. Wet and dark.

Hair?

Rookwood had brought him here to steal his hair?

"All the necessaries. Hair, blood, and the rest."

Blood... What did he mean blood...

The man dropped a cloth on Harry. "You'll need this."

He shifted and ground Harry's hand deeper into the dirt. All Harry knew was dire pain. He screamed, but it was nothing compared to the sound of the rain beating on leaves and thudding against the ground.

Rookwood's foot was off his hand, then back on it. He hadn't noticed when that happened.

When Rookwood stood he closed a flask and pocketed it. In his hand he had something else. A flash of lightning revealed it to be pale, pale and bloody.

The shape... Was that a finger?

Was that Harry's finger?

His mouth filled with bile and he vomited.

"Hair, blood, bone, flesh. You're a bit young for needing semen. I suppose I could get some bile from you. Hard to do it without killing a body, though. It'll be enough, what I collected."

Harry didn't understand. He had arranged all this for some blood and one of Harry's fingers. He wasn't going to kill?

Rookwood knew the unasked question. "My Master requires me to leave you alive, Potter. He wants the honor of killing you himself. Hopefully you'll present more of a challenge next time. He's coming soon. Farewell, Boy-Who-Bled, Boy-Who-Shall-Die."

Rookwood stomped off toward a path.

Harry's wand hand was no longer crushed, but the pain... His wand was in pieces.

Harry picked up the largest fragment of his wand with his alternate hand. The poor shard had a bit of bedraggled feather poking out. It didn't look like much, so broken, not unlike Harry.

He pointed and shouted, "Fulmenifer."

The power of lightning wasn't just confined to the sky. For a brief instant it existed far closer to the Earth.

Harry had really worked the spell, otherwise casting this in the rain would have done far more damage to himself than his target. Still, the effort burned up the fragment of his wand and didn't seem fatal to that horrible wizard.

Harry pushed himself up. He took that little cloth Rookwood had dropped and held it on the stump of his missing pinky finger.

Harry found Rookwood on the ground. He had dropped Harry's finger. Harry picked it up along with the knife that had severed it.

When he stood, he tried to orient himself. Where was the castle? There, he thought. There he could see the lights in a tower.

Harry heard chittering noises which were louder than the rain for a brief moment. What in the world made that kind of sound?

Harry stepped on the flask Rookwood had on him. How was he parted from it now? Didn't matter. Harry looked for Rookwood's wand. There. Harry picked it up, took a few more steps, and cast Sunfire on the flask of blood. The wand fought him a little, but the spell worked. Harry dropped the wand. It felt like sickness.

He started walking and didn't look back. He advanced with Rookwood's knife, his finger (unburned by the Fulmenifer, best as Harry could tell), and what fragments remained of his wand.

He was shaking, but it wasn't from the rain. He didn't even know if magic could repair something like the damage to his hand. He just knew he had to get to safety.

He thought he heard some screaming from the clearing where Rookwood had captured him. Harry found he didn't care.

X-X-X

Harry lay in bed while Sirius sat in the chair close by. Madam Pomfrey explained what she knew today. It was the third day Harry had been stuck in this bed and about the tenth report like this. Facts kept changing.

The knife had been cursed, that was confirmed. Though what curse... The experts at St. Mungo's had called in further experts. They didn't have a name for it yet so they couldn't try to break it.

Harry was still ill not because he'd been out in the rain, but because he had caught some disease only convicts at Azkaban passed around. Similar to tuberculosis, but magical in nature.

Sirius looked concerned at that. Harry didn't know what tuberculosis was.

Harry had broken some bones in his hand from where Rookwood had stepped on it and his skin had been torn up. Those would still have to wait for healing until the cursed wound was dealt with.

And, she added, no one had yet found the broom he had been riding. Which was a question Sirius had posed the day before. Harry found he didn't care.

Sirius said all the right things to Madam Pomfrey. Finally she went away. Finally.

Harry was beyond being polite just then. He was equal parts misery and rage. He could barely think and, when he did, he had two thoughts.

One, his finger was in stasis while experts from St. Mungo's dithered about the curse. Only after they lifted the curse could they attempt to reattach the finger.

Two, Rookwood himself. Aurors had found his blood and bit of him, but the bulk of his body was gone. The investigators from the Ministry were saying that acromantulas got him. Harry still refused to ask what the term meant. He'd come across the word, but couldn't remember what it referred to. He assumed they meant 'something that lived in the forest and chittered.'

His revenge was complete, the bad people were defeated, but Harry still suffered. Alive, but wounded. Healing, but cursed.

He'd thought himself wary because of the Dementor and the attack by the Wold of Bandon. He hadn't been ready for anything. He'd put himself in the sky on a stormy morning and gave Rookwood a target for his overpowered summoning charm...

Harry felt darker than his hair. He felt lower than a body in the ground.

He smiled, or tried, when he had visitors. The Gryffindor team had been in the last two days. None of them could look at his wand hand.

Hermione, Ron, and Neville had been in. Neville had managed a few conversations. Hermione just wanted to express her pity. Harry was drowning in pity, not that he told off Hermione for being kind.

A few of the professors had dropped in. They were mostly stuttering wrecks, not knowing what to say or having the ability to say it. Though the Flamels had been calm and helpful. That aura they carried hadn't lasted long around Harry after they departed, though.

Nothing helped.

Even Harry's wand was gone. As soon as he was healed of his tuberculosis and that cursed wound, he'd need to go to Ollivanders for a new one.

Not even the phoenix feather survived. Nor would he get a new one. No one had seen Fawkes since Dumbledore died.

There were the things Sirius wasn't saying, too. Still people talked, the professors mostly and a few investigators, and Harry heard. Those Dementors had Kissed three and given nightmares to hundreds more.

There was a little justice in who the victims were. Bellatrix Lestrange was soulless. An Auror guarding the Minister of Magic was gone – as was his protectee, Cornelius Fudge, the one who had ordered the Dementors emplaced at Hogwarts. Slain by his own decision, that was a neat thing...

From the fragments Harry caught, the soulless Fudge was still Minister of Magic until his body died or the Wizengamot removed him. No one was placing bets on which would happen first. Politics and coalitions and jockeying...

At least Fudge couldn't do any more damage. Some caretaker in the Ministry had even ordered the Dementors removed. After all, all three of their targets were dealt with. And they had only managed to desoul the Minister of Magic.

Sirius was doing his best, but Harry felt as black and bleak as he ever had. His hand... His hand. Sirius, bless him, just talked about normal life. He kept away from what had happened. He tried to find topics that Harry wanted to talk about. They were sort of rare just then.

Hermione came into the ward. "How are you?" she asked.

Harry smiled. It wasn't much of an effort, rather sad actually.

"Right. I have someone with me who wanted to talk to you."

Harry nodded.

"Come in," Hermione said to someone who was outside the door.

Lavender Brown walked into the infirmary.

She had been quieter this year, Harry remembered.

"Hello, Harry."

Harry just nodded. He didn't have the strength to say hello.

"Everyone told me not to look at your hand."

Hermione looked angry. Sirius had concern on his face.

Harry brought his hand up.

Lavender looked at it and nodded.

Harry dropped it to his side. It was just a hand, at least that was what he tried to tell himself. Just a finger, just a hand.

"I'm sorry about last year, about that assignment for Madam Spurl."

She was here over that?

"Don't worry about it," Harry said.

"No, I was stupid. I don't know why I did it. I guess I just didn't like her."

Harry nodded. People did stupid things for stupid reasons. They joined Voldemort for stupid reasons. They kidnapped children for stupid reasons. Harry found himself more forgiving of a daft girl throwing a tantrum.

"It was amazing what she did, breaking that curse. I never apologized to her. I didn't to you, either, last year. I should have."

Yes, she should have, then. It didn't matter now.

"You really tried to get me to help. So I was just a bad person all around."

"That was last year," Harry said.

"Yes. But this year I wanted to know if you'd like to go to Hogsmeade. With me."

"Even with me like this?" He held up his hand again.

"I think it matters more to you than to anyone else."

Harry's eyes went wide. Had she really said that?

"How much do you think about Hermione's pinky finger?" Lavender asked.

"I don't."

"How much does she think about your pink finger?"

Harry shrugged. He saw what she was trying to say. "So I should just be glad it's something no one cares about..."

"It's hard to believe I'm giving that advice, I suppose? I spend massive amounts of time on my hair and my face. I care about them. No one else cares as much about them as I do. If I lost all my hair one day, I'd mourn it. Especially if it might not grow back. But I would adjust. And I could make others forget about my missing hair..."

"How?" Harry asked.

"I'd wear a hat at all times, of course."

She was the first person to really try to make him smile. "Thank you for coming," Harry said. He offered her a smile that was at least a little bit true. "Maybe we can go to Hogsmeade together. But there will be no lace doilies."

"I think I could make a case..."

"And off we go," Hermione said, jumping into the mess.

The door to the infirmary closed behind them.

"You have some good friends," Sirius said.

"More than I thought."

Sirius was happy to let the room fall quiet for a time. But he was impatient, too. "Thoughts for the summer?"

Harry knew his godfather couldn't be silent for long. "It's a long way away."

"I came to love summer when I was in school. Summers staying with your family."

Harry nodded.

"If you got to pick, what would it be?" Sirius asked.

He had a frightful fire in his belly just then. It was stronger than his misery, but would it last? "I want to learn something. I want to work hard. I want to get ready for what is coming."

"And what is that?"

Voldemort. More fools like Rookwood. Death. "Trouble," Harry said. In every shape and color. That was all the more comfortable he was naming his immediate future: trouble.

X-X-X

Harry sat in the last row of chairs. He didn't really want to be here where so many could see him. He had ten fingers again, but very little use of one of them. He felt like everyone was staring at him. Kidnapped by Augustus Rookwood and walked away alive. They forgot the wounded part.

The famous singer who everyone was here to see made an entrance after everyone was seated. She walked slowly from the back of the room to the front. Harry was sure enough he'd never heard her sing.

Then he was wrong. She sang for them a little. Harry realized he knew the song she picked...from Mrs. Weasley's magical radio.

Hermione got up and did her usual introduction. Such and such concerts. Such and such awards.

Madam Warbeck talked about singing in the taverns of the world, then eventually the few dedicated halls for entertainment. There were a few in the United Kingdom, but mostly they had been used for duels and public meetings and hosting celebrations. She had also traveled extensively. Filling a concert hall was easier in France, Germany, and Austria. It was even harder in America, which was even more spread out than the United Kingdom. Australia outside three or four cities... She laughed.

Creating a career in the arts was difficult, she said in many different ways. Witches and wizards could travel so easily that they chose to live far apart. So it was an event to get them all in a room for a live concert. It wasn't the same just making a song for replay on the radio. She found she loved to perform live. She also tried to support new artists or small groups. She tried to bully the wireless into featuring new acts and was somewhat successful. Harry had the sense that she was responsible for giving groups like the Weird Sisters their first breaks.

Harry found her very nice. He didn't know what he was expecting from a 'famous' singer, but she wasn't it. She was like a nice grandmother.

The things she talked about – how wizards and witches came together as a community, where they did it, and when – were things he hadn't thought about. Nor had he read the first word on this topic.

Eventually she came to talk about being famous. Harry might not like his fame, but he wasn't blind that it existed and didn't seem to be going away. Being savaged by Rookwood had even increased it.

"You've had Quidditch players in, yes?" she asked. "And a few good duelists? The part they may not talk about was the public, the fans. A voice can last longer than a player in a Quidditch league, one of my sons flew for the Arrows, if you didn't know."

Harry hadn't. He really hadn't known anything about her.

"He bears my husband's name and I'm not telling. He gets a little privacy. I get less."

She seemed sad but not bitter.

"I've dealt with fans since before my Quidditch-playing son was born. I live my life on a stage. So people come up to me after, or when I'm shopping. I'll tell you a few things about being a success. When you are in public, anytime, you are in front of your potential fans."

Harry nodded. He'd felt that.

"If you are in public, you are performing, even if you aren't singing."

That was right. It was cruel and it was true.

"Let me be clear. As a performer, you are trying to keep your reputation intact. Most of us – even me before I was about twenty-eight or so – don't think about our reputation. It's not something that matters. To a person who climbs into the public eye, it does matter. I wouldn't still be paid to sing if I didn't start taking care of my voice – and my reputation."

Harry wasn't a singer. He was just a student. But he had a reputation. He had it even if he didn't want it. But he hadn't done anything with it. Reporters used it. Those people who wrote Harry Potter books for little kids, they used it.

Harry started paying very close attention.

"It's not easy acting like a professional whenever I'm in public. I'm a person. Yes, I can be moody at times. I can be angry. But I do it at home. It's a little harder to live life this way."

Harry nodded.

"I remember how I was when I was younger. How I was when I was at Hogwarts. So, if you set out on the road to be a success, keep this lesson in mind. Talent matters. The hard work matters. But staying at the top, if you get there, is in large part your responsibility, too. Your fans will pay attention to what you make but also _how you are_. They'll follow you in the papers. They'll watch. Not fair, if you ask me, but it's how we all are."

Harry had never put those thoughts together like that. But it was true... Horribly true.

"Except when I'm performing, I lead a fairly private life, which is my choice. It's one of the ways I've lasted as long as I have. So, if you become a Quidditch success or you launch a successful band or you're the next famous painter of wizard portraits or you actually perform the accomplishments once claimed by that fraud Lockhart, maybe you're a reputable columnist for a paper or a future Minister of Magic... I hope you'll remember what I say. Fame can help. Fame can also cut you to ribbons. So, if your success happens, congratulations. Put your dragon hide gloves on and tame the heads of that hydra."

Harry smiled.

Madam Warbeck meandered back into the arts. She talked about a few initiatives she had started or helped to fund with other singers or other artists. Some of them did sound worthy. "It's what I do with a part of the money I make. I have a lot, more than I could spend or allow my children to ever spend. So I hope to nurture a few more...younger talents. Some wonder if I wouldn't be funding the singer who makes me irrelevant. Perhaps. I choose to think of it as expanding the pool of people who enjoy music. Maybe someone younger gets them listening. Maybe that listener eventually finds enjoyment in what I perform, too. So even my good deeds have a little bit of selfishness to them somewhere."

She ended with caution. "It's a hard life with no guarantees. And Madam Luck is pettiness personified. You befriend her, but she does not befriend you, not really. She might stay with you for a while, but she'll evaporate on the wind eventually. But for those who _must_ make art, we do not care that it might never be great art. The trying is enough. And maybe it will become something better, find a bigger audience. Because we _must_ make art. If this sounds like you, you have my best wishes and my sympathy. I know how hard my journey was. I don't know about yours, but I can make a few guesses."

Then she bowed and collected a lot of applause.

It was a very different lecture from others Hermione had scheduled. Harry was turning over what she said. There was some things about fame in particular that made him think. She had said these things after living a life of fame. And that made it easier to accept her words.

Some of Madam Warbeck's fans in the room rose for questions and compliments.

Harry did stand to ask a question. The rest of the room went silent. To them, and probably the rest of the country, Harry was more famous than any singer. He'd also been a little snarly since that horrible Quidditch match and its aftermath. Okay, a lot snarly. The reattached finger on his hand didn't feel quite right. Nothing did.

Madam Warbeck didn't seem to recognize him, the distance perhaps?

"Hello," Harry said.

She smiled back at him.

"When you're having a moody day, how do you become unmoody?" Harry asked.

There were a few giggles from the other students in the room, perhaps as a comment on how moody Harry had been.

"I lie," she said. "I dress and I tell myself I have to run my errand. Then, whatever is on the inside, I stuff it there when I go out and get done what I need done. When I'm home, I can be what I am and feel what I feel."

Harry frowned. He had to lie and pretend he wasn't angry when he was?

"As I said, it's not fair. I'm supposed to have a life. But many of the usual attractions are hard. Say, going to the Leaky Cauldron for a pint? It became a lot less fun when it turns into a mob scene."

"Is it worth it?" Harry asked.

"I wish people could enjoy my music without needing to gain my attention when I'm shopping for quills. But that's not the way witches and wizards are. I learned to adjust, but it wasn't easy. Some days, many decades on, it still isn't easy."

Harry thanked her and sat down. Sirius had said many of the same things. But he was Padfoot. This was someone who had been famous long before Harry's mother was born.

Harry thought about what she said. He didn't think change would be very easy, but he had to do something.

Harry needed a place where he could be what he was. The room on the fifth floor? It was private, save for Dumbledore's ghost and Peeves... and whoever Peeves told about the Fulmenifer. Harry was being sought out by a few cautious spirits to inquire.

Harry wasn't the Love Doctor to Ghouls...

He needed to get back to work on his year-project for Runes, too. So less snarling in public, more research in private?

Harry didn't think he would ever like his fame, but perhaps he could get better at handling it. He also decided to send Madam Warbeck a letter. He appreciated what she had to say – and he didn't want to get between her and her fans after the talk was over. Harry's fame was the kind that overwhelmed.

Though she had said she championed young artists because she cared about art.

Harry didn't want to dabble in something like that just because it was there. What did he really care about in the wider world? He didn't know. He found he knew little about what was out there. Good on Hermione for educating all of them.

So this was a future plan. If he had to have this fame, he might find something useful to do with it.

This was another long-term project. He wouldn't rebuild Godric's Hall with a third-year student's knowledge. He wasn't going to do much with his fame at the same age. But he could begin looking for things he might care to fix. Looking was where it started...

Madam Warbeck sang two songs to close out the lesson. She had made herself a few new fans. A clever woman, Harry thought. Many of the Gryffindors Hermione invited were actually very clever people. Maybe they'd hid their cleverness in order to get into this house.

Harry could do with a few extra doses of cleverness right now.

X-X-X

The grounds of Godric's Hall were gorgeous draped in two inches of snow. Harry was much happier being away from Hogwarts for a time. So what if he and Sirius were living in tents? They were damned fine tents.

Sirius really had bought a version with fountains. And his also contained an ice-skating rink. Somehow Sirius and Harry invented a game involving brooms (they both got new ones before Yule, and Harry got a watch he liked). The game involved chasing down a transfigured ball on that rink while flying.

They also needed more padding before trying that again. Harry had bruises on his bruises. Sirius was rough chasing a ball on the ice. Who knew he could focus like that?

Harry could be himself here, but he found the bleakness hadn't returned. He admitted to himself that his finger was wrong. He had lost hope about it, not that he was telling anyone with the title Healer.

Harry dressed and walked over to Sirius' tent. Yes, they were staying in separate tents. Sirius had taken up pranking again. After the first time Sirius got Harry overnight (purple hair, itching skin, sneezing that smelt of cheese), Harry set up his own tent. Pranking was for daylight hours only, if then.

Padfoot had invited some friends and family to lunch today. So they would move his tent outside the protections.

First, they couldn't adjust them to admit more people. Sirius had been invited by the Potters. Harry was a Potter. That was the reason they could be on the grounds. But Harry didn't know how to add more to the list.

Second, even if he could, Harry wasn't planning to invite anyone on his land until he had a proper home to show them. The emptied foundation of Godric's Hall was like a scar in the Earth. It wasn't something to show off.

"Sirius, you ready to move your tent?" Harry called out.

"Moving the tent can wait, Harry." His godfather had tried to get Harry to respond to pup, Prongslet, and many other silly terms. No, no, and no.

"For what?"

"Well maybe presents? Maybe breakfast?"

"I suppose I have to cook?" Harry asked, not at all unhappy.

"I burned the last pancakes I made. They were thinner than a knut, too."

"Did you measure anything?"

"Let me think...no."

"Flunked potions, right?"

"No, not really. I usually had Remus as a lab partner."

Harry laughed.

Harry walked into the monstrous kitchen in Sirius' tent and set to making something simple. He was planning a feast for Christmas supper – and much of it was already cooked and in stasis. He wanted to meet his relatives and Sirius' friends, not stand in the kitchen. There was a goose and a ham, which seemed like too much already, plus about forty side dishes and desserts. Sirius claimed he would keep it under stasis and continue eating it through the spring. It would take at least that long, Harry thought.

After breakfast, Sirius did the dishes and Harry sat in front of the presents. He already had the new broom even though he'd left the Quidditch team. He wore his new watch. But presents didn't care. Hermione sent along a book, something Harry had never come across before on professions for wizards. There might be some fine tips in here, perhaps it was had helped Hermione to set up the diverse classes she'd set.

Neville had sent a thoughtful present, an object that wizards gave each other upon moving into a new home. Neville really did pay attention. Harry would keep the brick imprinted with the Potter coat of arms for when he had a house and not a set of ruins.

Ron and the twins sent chocolate frogs. Nothing wrong with tradition.

Celestina Warbeck had sent a letter in response to Harry's. Madam Spurl and the Flamels had sent cards.

"You were holding onto these," Harry accused Sirius.

"They arrived yesterday. You were busy studying your family book."

"What did you get?" Harry asked, nodding at the presents for Sirius.

"I think you know what you got me."

"And you'd better be grateful I didn't pay someone to curse it first."

"I am. I got a pair a slippers from my cousin Andromeda. She's coming to supper. I got a very terse letter from my cousin Cissy, Draco's mother..."

"Oh." Harry wondered she would be like. Harry had met Draco and Lucius. What was the third of that family like? Better not to ask...

"Where did you tell everyone we were meeting?" Harry asked.

"A Potter farm in Lancashire, not all that far away from Manchester."

"Could you have picked a more distant one?"

"Actually, no. It is the furthest spit of land you still own."

Harry laughed. "So if anyone talks, people will think we're hiding out in a tent near Manchester."

"Exactly. What a devious mind you possess..."

Harry was getting blamed for Sirius' idea. "Suppose I do. Born with it, then honed by another devious sod."

"Exactly," Sirius said.

Three hours later, in a repositioned tent, Harry greeted his first guests, Andromeda Tonks, her husband Ted, and their daughter who insisted she didn't have any name other than Tonks. Harry decided to call her Tonks Tonks or Double-T. She seemed to prefer this to whatever her real name was.

Eventually they had all their guests settled and Harry and Sirius served the feast. Andromeda asked about their elves... Sirius took on a pallor. Harry just said they didn't need elves yet. Though he expected to need them when he had a permanent home again.

Remus, Sirius' friend, was very quiet. Harry did his best to draw the man out a bit.

The other guests, including a man with a blue eyeball, were an odd bunch. Very odd. It was a fun evening overall. No one got too drunk, no one puked in one of the fountains... That had been a worry given some of Padfoot's stories of his youth.

Sirius had to promise to behave – no pranks! – but Harry stayed the night. They moved the tent back the next morning.

Then they flew on brooms, outside and not on the ice rink, that afternoon. They dined on leftovers. They'd be eating them come summer break from Hogwarts. At least the goose and ham were very tasty.

The next day Harry returned to his examination of the Book of Family Magic. The early pages were written in runes Harry couldn't yet read nor even recognize the style. The latter pages were written in English. In the middle was a bunch of Latin which a translation spell Harry found turned into nonsense. Oh boy...

Harry continued working his way through the different portraits to ask them about what was contained in the book. Different portraits had used the book for different things.

Harry came to learn what was not included in the book. For one, the rune sets used to defend Godric's Hall weren't included. No one knew why, they just knew it wasn't in there because they'd tried and failed to find it.

It was generally less helpful, and more of a family memento, than Harry had hoped. The tradition to commit the family's secrets to the book had waned at some point. It became a record of births and deaths and perhaps a few new spells. But the oldest part of the book, according to the portraits, was actually material on the family business, pottery.

Later on, Potters hadn't made pots. They'd had all sorts of callings – and the book recorded almost none of that.

Which was sad.

"I'd better track the one for my family down," Sirius said. "I've no idea where to start. We have just as many spits of land, but most still have houses on them. I suppose I'll need to do something with them. But that book... We were traditionalists and fancied ourselves very dark. If every dark thing some member of my family thought of went into that book... Well, I need to get ahold of it."

Harry agreed with the principal but not the urgency. "Is there a rush?"

"I hadn't thought so with so few Blacks left. Andy, me, Tonks Tonks, Cissy, that shite Draco. You, Harry. But that's just me being ignorant. We're the ones who are legitimate. You better believe we have all sorts of roots and bastard branches – none of them appear on the family tapestry."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I've got great-great-uncles who had mistresses. And closer down the line. I don't know how many people actually have Black blood in them. Few legitimate types, but how many others? There were some very unsavory characters in my family. It's possible I have a dozen half-brothers from my own father. Never know..."

"Maybe you should start looking."

Harry smiled as Sirius left the room. It was good he had a project.

Harry found he had another project beyond the house and the things he was doing for his future aventures and for classes. He needed to do something better about this Book of Family Magic. Start documenting things? Make it a useful record of the family? The Potters had almost died out completely. Their family seat was in ruins. Their vault had run empty of any magic to keep it secure. This had to be the family's lowest point in a long, long time.

There was more to a family than a house or a book, but Harry wanted to restore both of them. The family reputation, too. He wanted his family to be strong.

Harry was personally famous...but was there a way to transfer that to the family? Maybe there was.

X-X-X

Harry cast Sunfire against the transfigured target. The room flashed hot. He cast Fulmenifer against the charring remains. He extinguished it all with a Water Globe then used three Diviso spells to chop it all finely. Then he vanished the lot.

He missed his phoenix feather and holly wand. But his new wand of mahogany and unicorn hair felt comfortable now. If he could say he was comfortable here at Hogwarts at all.

It had been much easier being at home in one tent or another. He hadn't realized how stressed he became being watched by so many people. They made note of the color of his famous finger. Wasn't that grand? He'd lost his famous scar, but now he had a famous finger to make up for it...

Okay, he was in a snit. He was in a rage. People... People could be so stupid, so thoughtless. Harry didn't even know what details set him off this time... He just had to get away. Burning and zapping things helped.

He transfigured another target and went again. He was tempted to add faces, but didn't. The list of people was simply too long.

Harry smiled at that.

He had developed a good public smile when walking around. It was hard to be so guarded for so long, but he had to. He had taken Madam Warbeck's words to heart. He might not want to sing to people, but they were fans of a sort. He had to be polite when he was out there...

"I say, Harry, why are you burning wood in Hogwarts?" a figure asked while floating through the wall.

Merlin... It was Dumbledore the Pale Fool.

Harry thought to cast a Fulmenifer at Dumbledore's ghost, but the dotty old apparition would probably like it, become another addict. Harry the Ghostly Drug Dealer.

"Now, I suppose you've heard about the Tournament and are preparing."

"Tournament?"

"Oh... Well, far be it from me to ruin a surprise," the ghost said.

Why not? It ruined everything else.

"It'll be for the older children. I started the negotiations, very preliminary, a few years back. I've no doubt things are continuing along nicely... So you won't need to show off your fire spell. You really should train that out of doors, you know, Harry..."

Sometimes Advisor Dumbledore appeared. Other times Mysterious Dumbledore. Today was Chatty Dumbledore, the worst kind of Dumbledore there was because it rattled between advice and mystery and anything else that popped into its mind.

Harry vanished what he had been working on. He packed up and headed for the door.

"I say, Harry, you should have Madam Pomfrey look at your finger. It doesn't look so good."

Harry didn't look. He knew. He could feel it.

"Have you been dabbling in Dark magic, my boy? You see what it does to you? First your finger, then perhaps your mind. This is not a road you wish to travel, I tell you..."

That was it. Harry needed to finish up his Rune project. He needed to keep these ghosts away. He might have to be pleasant in public, but he was going to restrict his efforts to only the living.

Harry stormed out of the room and that damned ghost followed after for two floors. It managed three more insulting comments. Only after Harry lost the ghost did he double back for Gryffindor Tower.

The usual gang was trying to work on homework. It was fairly loud in there. Why didn't they go to the library... They always went after Harry came back. Neville, Hermione, and Ron were always here waiting for Harry to get back.

That really was nice of them. And Harry had been slow to realize. They must know what he was doing. Not the details, but that he needed time to himself.

"Hey everyone," Harry said. "Charms essay?"

"Done," Ron said.

Hermione looked skeptical at that.

"Harry, you're working on your spells, aren't you?" Neville asked. Neville continued to firm up his backbone this year.

"Yeah, why?"

"I'm really fighting to learn these new spells..."

Harry had noticed. Whatever had changed inside Neville's mind hadn't changed his handling of magic.

"Fighting, like as in pushing too much..."

"Well, I hate to cast spells in here. Maybe we could go out on the grounds?"

Or up to the fifth floor...

There it was. The temporary solution to Harry's ghost problem since Dumbledore was wary of other people.

Harry did trust these guys and a few more. He should have showed everyone his training rooms before.

"Can you keep a secret?" Harry asked.

"I would like to," Hermione said. She was always listening and watching. She had never quite invited herself along when Harry was in a training mood, but perhaps she had changed her mind.

Neville and Ron nodded.

"I found an empty couple of rooms a while back." Two years back, he didn't say. "I work on spells there. Stone walls, it's pretty safe."

"Could I? I mean, would you let me...," Neville asked.

"Sure."

"And me?" Hermione asked rather than demanded.

"Of course." Harry looked at his other friend. "Ron, you in?"

"Nah. Thanks for asking, though."

Harry knew he should tell Ron about his theory of magic, that Ron would be far happier at the Burrow. More active, less...listless. Hogwarts really was harming him, Harry thought.

But how to tell Ron?

Neville might know something of it. His magic was content with his plants. Then, Hermione had found something to quiet her drives, the lecture series she kept going from high point to high point... Okay, Sir Nicholas had been a bit of a bore, but no one was really surprised. Ghosts teaching history must be a bad idea, regardless of which ghost it was.

And Harry felt better, too. His spell work usually centered him. So what did that mean? Should he be a duelist or something? Harry had no idea, just that he was calmer after he worked his spells...

"Okay, tomorrow after Charms. I have a little ritual I use to keep from being followed..."

"I noticed," Hermione said.

Harry smiled. "Sorry."

"So you can work on things there."

Neville grinned. "Thank you. It's just I can't make these new spells in Charms work at all..."

It didn't sound like Neville suffered from lack of practice. And he certainly had plenty of magic. So that left...

"Might I see your wand?" Harry asked.

Neville looked surprised but handed his wand over.

"Lumos," Harry said.

The wand sputtered.

Harry pushed more magic and said, "Lumos."

He got a light, but not a stable one. This felt like the last time he'd used his phoenix feather and holly wand, after it had been shattered.

Something was dreadfully wrong with this wand.

"What's the history of it? What have you done with it?" Harry asked.

Neville's eyes narrowed. "Just spells for class."

That didn't make any sense. "Neville, this wand is burned out."

"What do you mean?" Hermione asked. "Burned out?"

"After Rookwood attacked me and broke my wand, I picked up the largest fragment and attacked him back. It felt like this. It felt broken. Neville..."

But Neville had a look of understanding and anger on his face.

"It's my father's wand. Gran insisted I use it. But he was...badly hurt in a battle. It's possible, it's even likely, he burned it out in that fight. He was trying to my protect my mother - and me. No one ever checked the wand, I mean after he got...hurt." He huffed. "Everyone, including me, just assumed I was a bad wizard. But I have a broken wand."

"Well, maybe not totally broken, but badly damaged. Take it to Ollivander and see what he says. You may need a new one." By may, Harry meant 'definitely will.'

"Thank you, Harry. Can I still practice in your room?"

"Of course. I'll even let you try my wand." Harry handed it over. "Let's see a Lumos."

Neville did. It was a glorious light, stable and brilliant and large. Almost as large as Neville's own smile.

X-X-X

Harry had forgotten the letter Sirius forwarded to him. Where had he... There. In an inner pocket. Sirius had been coy about this letter when they had last spoken via mirror.

He tried to walk down the hall and read at the same time. Eventually he gave up walking as a lost cause. He had to go back and read the letter through a second time.

Then a third.

Harry smiled. He almost started cheering like a maniac, but had enough natural reserve to quash that.

Harry had a job for the summer. Sirius was behind it, obviously. After all, an old Black property in Normandy was being demolished so the land could be sold to muggles. That meant that every bit of magic, every rune stone, had to be removed and decommissioned.

Harry would get to see the secrets of the Blacks. Even if he was only to be an 'errand boy.' An errand boy emplaced by the owner. And in France. Harry had never traveled so far before.

Taking apart a magical structure would show him some of the details of how it had been built, too. Padfoot really was a great godfather. Harry would have to mirror-call him later.

Harry arrived at the Gryffindor family room and saw something odd at the front. The door guardian was there in a different portrait and frame from usual. She was smiling and nodding... Right, Harry had about forgotten the topic.

Manners, tradition... A bit of Harry's joy evaporated.

This time Professor McGonagall was present. Harry hadn't seen her at any other of these classes. Had she just now noticed? Perhaps she had to be notified to supply a replacement door guardian while the Fat Lady was here?

Hermione stood up. The room was not yet filled, but no one expected it of this particular topic. Why was Harry here again? He was one of the few blokes in the room... He supposed he was here for Hermione, for all the work she had done.

"Another true Gryffindor. When Madam Phoebe Bones nee Gwynnerd died, she willed her portrait to Hogwarts. My sources inform me she has served Gryffindor House for more than one hundred twenty years. Tonight she has asked to speak to all of us. Please welcome Madam Bones."

"Thank you, Fat Lady." That sounded remarkably like Ginny Weasley who must be filling in for her absent twin brothers.

"You're welcome, Littlest Weasley. I see a lot of missing faces tonight. Don't worry. I'll pass the word when certain people try to get into Gryffindor Tower. I have a captive audience then," the portrait said.

At least Harry felt better about coming. He was getting his lecture now. Poor Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville...

The room gave the Fat Lady a light chuckle.

"I haven't walked from my portrait to this one just to give you a list of rules. I've come to tell you the things that the school no longer does."

Harry noted that Professor McGonagall sat up a bit straighter. Like how a cat might in the face of a predator.

"We won't talk rules. We'll talk about the thinking behind the rules. Of course, I'm witness to much in my corridor and I tire of it. Even when I scold those out late at night whispering nothings to each other – or worse – conduct does not change. So let us talk about why there are rules that you all seem so fond of ignoring."

This was going to be tedious, Harry knew. Painful, too.

But he was wrong.

It wasn't scolding. It turned out to be more of a history lesson, but not one that Binns had ever thought to give.

The Fat Lady talked about the history of the houses in the time she had known. Hufflepuff students had died at the hands of others. Slytherins had murdered others in their own house. Hogwarts had been a far more violent place in her time, which she was remarkably vague about identifying. Perhaps she still refused to give away her true age.

"And the Professors use these situations to hand out detentions or take points. Don't get me started on House points. No. The reason for a curfew, the reason for bowing (which no one ever does these days), the reason for wand holsters, and all the rest was to create an environment of courtesy and keep the students – you – from attacking and killing each other. A cruel word and a duel might start... Now there's just a lightly enforced rules about dueling in the halls..."

Students killed each other... Why had that never made it into any of the versions of Hogwarts: A History?

"Following the rules used to be damned serious business. Three of the students I started Hogwarts with were dead before my fifth year. Another few died before I graduated, but two of these were classroom mishaps. Trying to do too much before they were ready. There's a reason Hogwarts doesn't take Master's candidates. Advanced work, experimentation, it's all dangerous. That's one master to two or three apprentices at most. You students are barely novices...and I can't tell you the experiments I've heard discussed in my corridor. Enough to make me sick..."

Sounded like Fred and George.

"No one ever tells you these things. We just repeat the rules. When we say be courteous, there's a reason. When we try to make you be respectful, there's a reason. When we grow alarmed from your experiments, there's a reason. It's time to make sure all of you know it."

Okay, there was a good deal of scolding mixed into her history, but Harry had never heard any of this.

Professor McGonagall was stiffer than the chair she sat in by now.

"Historically it's very dangerous for a stranger to walk inside another's castle. Many a man was slaughtered by a treacherous lord. So Hogwarts had to work to get families to trust it. That's where the rules came from, why they were as they were. To keep students safe from each other – and from the staff and faculty. An eleven year old with a new wand, never used, is no match for a master of any field. A potions master is a poisoner. A transfiguration master could make the dead appear as anything else. A hex-master or curse-master...you don't want to know what they can do. A master enchanter... Hogwarts was created by one. You think a person that skilled is limited to making wonderful things? No, of course not. Why do you think Professor Flamel forced the teachers to sign the old form of the teacher's contract starting last year. That horrible witch Umbridge fell afoul of it. But it's keeping some others on the right path, at least..."

Professor McGonagall finally had enough aspersions on her colleagues, it would seem. She stood. "I would like to know just who is experimenting and terrifying you..."

She decided to poke into the rumors about the students, not the faculty.

"If you did half your job, Professor, you'd already know," the Fat Lady said.

The room hushed completely. No one spoke to McGonagall like that. Not even a portrait.

"Yes, you're a major part of the problem. I open for you about three times a year. A Head of House only going into the common room a handful of times per year..."

"All students are welcome to my office..."

"You're as remote as that last Headmaster. A piece of work he was. I saw him when he was a student and I watched him when he was Head of Gryffindor. If he's your role model, you'd best look harder..."

"Why I... I will not listen... Albus Dumbledore was my mentor and my friend. This class is ended."

"It most certainly is not. Teaching you up a bit is part and parcel of this class, Professor. Listen or leave. I certainly intend to speak to Headmaster Flamel later this evening. I've had several good chats with him over the last year. Sensible fellow, though limited in how quickly he can restore the old traditions. He's someone you should learn from, though I understand he's soon to depart..."

"He's not quite to my...taste."

"Rather effective, isn't he? You like powerful and useless, like old Albus? Figures."

The students who hadn't come to this class were going to die of shame that they had missed this.

And McGonagall. What would she do? Yank the Fat Lady's portrait off the wall? Resign as Head of House? Transfigure the portrait into a kitty's litter box?

Harry wouldn't take bets on any of it.

"And any rule on the books that is there for a Professor's convenience and not a student's safety – I've no respect for them at all. If you're so stretched, hire more people. There's money enough. Just takes a good plan and a firm spine. Plus a full appointment to the office. Poor Professor Flamel is only the Acting Headmaster... No interest in a full-time appointment. He's made some use of the Hogwarts vault, though. A good start."

"What Hogwarts vault?" McGonagall asked.

The Fat Lady looked even more disappointed, if that were possible. "Perhaps you would do well talking to several of the portraits around the castle. The Hogwarts vault... The Founders never trusted a wild goblin back before all of the wizard-goblin wars. Gold's there, documents, the land deeds. All of it."

Apparently the Deputy Headmistress had known none of it. None of the students had, but that wasn't their job. This was another good bit of gossip to them.

"I have a lot to think about," McGonagall said.

"Then off you go. And I hope you make a good start of it. I'll keep these students a while longer. There's more to go over. We haven't talked about rules that have fallen away. Like for rudeness. Rudeness is a fool's business, children. If you make your enemy feel bad, he won't forget."

McGonagall got up and left.

The Fat Lady had won, for now. And she continued discussing the reasons behind the school rules and the traditions that had been forgotten.

Harry tried to think back to some of the mistakes he'd inevitably made. Was rudeness the reason why Draco Malfoy kept poking and poking at Harry? Some of the older Gryffindors had been joking that it was some crush. Yuck. But Harry admitted he had been rude to Malfoy on the Hogwarts Express, nearly as rude as Draco had been.

Perhaps it was fixable, but likely not. That was a person who remembered slights forever.

X-X-X

Ancient Runes was slightly smaller than it had been at the start of the year. Seamus and Ron had both left. Maybe a Ravenclaw or two as well. But it had been a great experience which was almost over for the year.

Professor Babbling looked to Harry. "Potter, your turn. Present, then let's see what we can do with your proposal."

"Yes, Professor." Harry had talked over some of it with the Professor. She had been a bit wary. Then Harry had gone through an ungodly number of books to hone in on his approach. Plus he'd talked to a number of older students in Gryffindor and more than one in Hufflepuff. They owed him for that stunt in Hogsmeade and a few had been willing to help.

Harry stood and unrolled some parchment. It wasn't as elegant as the flying sign boards Professor Babbling used during some of her lectures, but it was what he managed. He walked down to the well of the class so he could see everyone. Professor Babbling sat down in the front row as she had for everyone else who presented.

"I've developed what I think is a spirit repellant," Harry said.

"Spirit?" Professor Babbling asked. She had discussed this with Harry, so she had to be asking for the benefit of the class.

"Well, I left it general. It should include ghosts and poltergeists, possibly ghouls."

She nodded. "Continue."

He lifted the parchment and hoped the symbols he'd drawn were large enough for people to see in the back row. He talked through each rune individually, then how they fit together into a sentence that roughly translated to this: Spirits will not enter my sight nor make a noise I can hear.

Writing in Runes was very inefficient compared to English, Harry had discovered. He had nineteen Runes on his parchment to comprise that sentence.

"So it will do what?" she asked.

"Well, I think it will compel them away, repel them, from whatever I inscribe this rune set into. Or whatever you inscribe it into."

The professor smiled. As she would be doing the actual inscription.

"Will they know they're being repelled?" she asked.

Harry shrugged. "I wish I knew."

Professor Babbling stood up and took his roll of parchment and began to examine it. She looked at it and twisted her head to look at his work from a few different angles. "These aren't all the standard forms of these runes. Why did you change them and what references did you consult?"

So Harry had to explain all of that. He had his list of references written down at least. He handed that over.

Some of the items on the list the Professor nodded at, things she'd expected to see.

Then, as she had done for every other student, she took out a quill and changed some of his runes, or at suggested they should appear in a different orientation to each other.

"I'd be willing to try this," she said. "If you have something for me to carve this into?"

"I do. It's not exactly what I wanted, but it was what I could find in Hogsmeade." He produced a medallion in steel. He didn't care for the way silver tarnished nor for the glister of gold. He hadn't wanted to pay for the cost of platinum, either. He had a lot of gold, but this was an experiment. Who knew if it would work?

Professor Babbling took the medallion. It wasn't massive, but it was as large as Harry could find. He had known his rune set wasn't going to be just five runes.

She nodded. "This is fine. Give me a moment." Her wand did a most intricate set of movements and Harry could see fine etchings on his medallion.

He had thought the carving part was harder. Or maybe she just made everyone learn the chisel and stone method before she let them use a spell. Hard way first, easy way later?

"You remember how to power it?" she asked.

Harry nodded. He'd watched two-thirds of the class do this. Harry touched the tip of his wand to the medallion and gently fed his raw magic into it. The medallion was a thirsty one, he could feel it pulling on him.

After Harry was done, Professor Babbling cast a spell then picked the medallion up. Her face lit up in a smile. "Very good. It held the magic you poured in."

"Did you think it wouldn't?" Harry asked.

"This many runes in an unknown set... I had no idea if it would be stable, but it seems to be."

"What would have happened if it hadn't been stable?" Hermione asked from the other side of the front row.

"Well, if it was unstable, when Mr. Potter pushed magic into it, the thin metal would have snapped. This wasn't very dangerous to test, which is why I was willing to do it."

Harry accepted the medallion from her. He could feel his magic contained inside it. It was a wild feeling.

"Report back next class if you can determine if it has an effect. This is something I've never seen tried and I apprenticed with the rune carvers of Murano, near Venice. They've seen everything, been commissioned to do everything."

"Yes, Professor."

She cast a Tempus spell. "Oh. We won't have enough time for another project. We'll finish up next class and begin to revise for the final examination the class after that. Well done, students. Well done on these projects. I've had a lot of fun reviewing them – and hopefully you can see what you might get up to in next year's class. There are more languages to study, but the applications get more interesting, too. Think about it."

Harry returned to his head. He put his medallion in the pocket of his robe. He needed to find a string or a chain. Silly. He should have bought one when he got the medallion itself.

The class began to empty.

"Mr. Potter?" the Professor called out.

Harry kept his face neutral. How did he keep getting held back?

"Yes, Professor."

She beckoned him back down to the well. Harry put on his most neutral expression and complied. "I am curious about the runes you used, specifically that you didn't limit it to only ghosts. But spirits more broadly."

"Why?" Harry asked. Was this a strange thing?

"Just humor me. Tell me where the idea came from."

"Well, a rune against ghosts would be useful. But I have a ghost I'm avoiding as well as Peeves."

"Peeves? The poltergeist?"

"Yes." And he said no more about that. Pimp-Master Potter? No, no, that story wasn't getting out.

"So you actually intended to handle more than one type of spirit? That was what kept you working on this for so long?"

"I suppose so."

"You started the hard work earlier than almost anyone, Ms. Granger excepted. And you were still working until last week."

"Until three days ago," Harry corrected.

"I see. And most of that was on this definition of spirit?"

"Almost all of it. The other words of the phrase are all common enough."

"Yes, I suppose they are. Your definition of spirit is clever, Mr. Potter. The whole thing is good work. Though I did want to caution you."

"You don't think it will work?" Harry asked, unhappy.

"No, I'm almost sure it will."

So what caution did she intend to give?

"It may work too well, perhaps. I think you might have yourself a variation on what the Wardens of Azkaban use at the prison to corral and control Dementors..."

Really!

"Of course, the Dementors are back at Azkaban so we can't test that."

Harry didn't miss the opportunity.

"Since this is a unique definition, I've been considering it. It's broad, very broad, and I expect the effects won't be limited to just ghosts and poltergeists. Hags have a bit of a spirit essence to them. Dementors. Maybe ghouls, too."

Well, what did that mean? "Right," he said, fully confused.

"Just keep this little secret to yourself? I doubt anyone in the class would think this related to Dementors, or other spirits, but I thought you should have my full opinion."

"Yes, Professor."

"Well done. It was a hard topic you set for yourself, but a clever solution. You've done well, Mr. Potter."

"Thank you."

As Harry left, he began to think about Dementors again. If this rune set repelled them, could he make something that trapped them or killed them? The Sunfire was a rather slow method, as it took at least three weeks.

He wondered.

It went onto that list of things that were 'interesting, but not immediately important,' like much else he learned at Hogwarts.

X-X-X

The Hogwarts Express ran to London tomorrow. Classes were over. Harry, along with Hermione, Neville, and Ron, walked down the hallways to the infirmary. There was nothing wrong with them. They were just there to lend support.

Harry had decided he'd pretended long enough. His finger wasn't healing. It was now a ghastly gray color. He could barely move it and couldn't feel it if it were pricked with a needle. It was dying, slowly. The curse on it was lightened, but still present.

While Harry still had the dagger (he'd left it with Sirius at Yule-time), the reattachment of his finger had failed. The specialists from St. Mungo's had come here today to sever it for a second time.

Harry for the last few weeks had worn a dragon hide glove on his wand hand if he wasn't in Charms, Transfiguration, or Defense – or practicing on the fifth floor. He didn't like others looking at that finger.

"Thank you," Harry said to his friends. "I'll just go in from here."

"Harry, we can...," Hermione started to say.

"I'm probably going to scream. You guys don't need to hear that."

"I'm not a guy." She smiled.

"Thank you," Harry said. "But I should just do this. I waited too long. I kept telling myself to give it more time. Then I had a project due. Then it was final exams. No more excuses."

Hermione, Neville, and Ron paused in the hallway. They didn't leave. "We'll just wait here," Neville said.

"You better hope they don't try to keep me overnight."

Ron laughed.

They were okay right now.

Harry found he was okay, too. He'd done his raging long before.

He walked into the infirmary and found Madam Pomfrey, three Healers, only one of whom he'd seen before, Sirius, and both Flamels waiting for him.

"Mr. Potter." Madam Pomfrey had a chair set up for him with a small table off to the side. The chopping block as it were.

He took off the glove and watched the reactions. Sirius knew what it would be. The Flamels didn't flinch. Pomfrey and the healers almost melted with pity.

"We've exhausted the options?" Harry asked for a final time.

"We have, Mr. Potter."

Harry thought he was called Healer Jordans.

"Let's do it," Harry said.

"A spell, I should think," the healer said to his colleagues.

"Certainly I'm done with knives," Harry stage whispered to Padfoot. His godfather didn't laugh, but he did offer a smile.

"Do you require any pain relief?" Jordans asked.

"Not yet."

"A calming potion?"

"I've had half a year to get ready for this. I've just been putting it off."

"I see." The Healer pulled out his wand. He gestured at the table draped in cloth.

Harry laid his hand as directed, just so.

The Healer took care aim and the cutter-cauterizer – a spell Harry had never come across before – blinked into existence for a briefness.

Harry found his hand had only three fingers and a thumb. The grey decaying lump remained on the table. There was no blood at all.

Harry didn't cry. He didn't even feel much pain. The nerves between hand and finger had degraded that far.

"Do you wish... We could dispose of it," the Healer said, not specifying what 'it' was.

"Put it in something metal, please."

Madam Pomfrey provided a basin.

Harry pulled his wand with his alternate hand – as he'd done since receiving the wound on his wand hand – and whispered, "Ignis Solis." The room was flooded with heat and brightness. The Sunfire consumed every bit of magic, every lick of darkness, that had corrupted the finger.

The basin had melted, too.

Madam Pomfrey shrieked at that unexpected result. Headmaster Flamel had his wand out and vanished all of it. Harry needed to work on his vanishing spell some more. He doubted he could have vanished something that hot and active. Burned embers, sure. A molten mass of steel? Maybe not.

Harry then underwent twenty minutes of examination and spellwork. Whatever the corruption was, it had remained in that finger. The rest of him, even his wand hand, was completely healthy.

Sirius hugged Harry when it was all over. He said nothing until the Healers left and Madam Pomfrey grudgingly permitted Harry to leave. The Flamels were still there. As mysterious as they were, Harry was willing to trust them. He still wanted to figure out how to copy that ability of theirs to obscure their appearance. Headmaster Flamel just looked old. What color his hair color was, no idea. Did he have hair? No idea. It was a remarkable bit of magic.

"Will you ride the Express tomorrow?" Sirius asked.

"Please."

"Should I meet you in London?"

"If you like. I know how to travel around."

"I think it's better if I meet you at King's Cross."

Harry smiled.

"I'm so sorry about this."

Harry wasn't going to cry. He wasn't. Not even if Sirius pulled out all his best tricks.

"Help a guy be stoic, will you?" Harry asked.

"Help? Never."

Harry didn't quite manage to laugh.

"Your teachers wanted to speak with you. I'll head out. See you tomorrow."

"We'll have a week before, uh, the other thing." Sirius, of course, was coming with Harry to France. After all, Sirius did own the property that was being deconstructed. They were taking a tent to live in, Sirius' ridiculously fancy one, ice rink and all.

Sirius walked away.

And so Harry was left with Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel.

"Walk with us, Mr. Potter," Professor Flamel said.

"My friends are waiting in the hall."

"Don't worry. We'll bring you back to them shortly."

So Harry walked with them.

When he thought of them, he thought of a basilisk skull on a wall, or Headmaster Flamel financially neutering Lucius Malfoy, or Professor Flamel destroying Madam Umbridge. Harry, for the first time, wondered if they had a hand in directing a Dementor to Cornelius Fudge or Bellatrix Lestrange. It was too great a coincidence otherwise. Just an Auror, a criminal, and a politician? Not a defenseless child? Not a frantic parent? Not an old man in the crowd who used his wand rarely? There had been more than a hundred Dementors present according to all the reports...

No, when these two had enemies, those enemies felt the weight of the world.

"I hope you've learned well over the last two years?" the Headmaster asked.

"I hope I have." A non-answer for a non-question.

"Good," Professor Flamel said.

"We didn't manage half as much as we would have liked. Perhaps my successor, your Professor McGonagall, will continue in good stead. Perhaps not," the Headmaster said.

"So that's confirmed?" Harry asked.

"Oh, yes. Everyone contending for the Headmaster position gave it up after the Minister's position opened up. Another three are dead, two more are on their way to prison. They were a very unsubtle bunch of thugs," the Headmaster said.

Harry knew none of them – and was glad he never would.

"You have faced more challenges in this year than we would have wished. I swear that we tried to give you a calm year. But on the day it mattered most, bad weather and a clever wizard conspired better than we were able to defend. And that is life, Mr. Potter," Professor Flamel said. "Unfair and devious."

"I shouldn't have played Quidditch. I did resign the team after..."

"That is true," the Headmaster said. "But you should have been safe playing a game. We regret that you weren't."

What could Harry say to that? It was Rookwood, not the Flamels, who was to blame.

"You've done well with your friends this year. You've helped them to better themselves. Mr. Longbottom seems to have become some specimen in a greenhouse who decided to blossom," Professor Flamel said.

"I think you had something to do with that. Some spells you cast at the beginning of the year, on the Express. He was different after that."

"I merely undid some botched spells cast on him long ago. I wish Madam Pomfrey had detected them, but I don't think she has had reason to see Mr. Longbottom. It was your assistance with his wand and his confidence - and just being a friend..."

She trailed off.

And Harry nodded. A friend should ask questions and try to help. That was all it had been. Thankfully it had done some good.

"Continue to be curious," the Headmaster said. "Your projects were very interesting to hear about. I don't know if you will pursue rune-work or enchanting beyond the walls of Hogwarts, but it seems to suit you so far. For it is a deep dive into books resulting in just a few little runes. You've got a sense of it, I'd say."

"It has been enjoyable." Harry just wished he had made more progress on the rune sets used in Godric's Hall. He'd gotten so busy with that spirit repellant he had made little time for his side project. Perhaps next year?

"Last, do not forget about your enemies," the Headmaster said.

Rookwood. The Wolf of Bandon. Voldemort. And many other names. He had no chance of forgetting. But... "I fear I won't be prepared on the day," Harry said.

"Well, you have a constant reminder." He nodded at Harry's hand.

That was a better way of thinking of it. Not as a loss, but as a reminder.

"Let me show you how I have survived. Just a moment. I don't do this often."

Whatever effect surrounded Flamel ended, taking down his disguise. Harry saw the old man's significant wounds, some of them horrifying. He might have all ten of his fingers, but he had lost much else. He had a dead eye, not replaced as with that one man who had come to Yule dinner, but dead and left dead.

The effect returned. Harry could remember what he'd seen, but he could no longer see what he'd just seen. It was unnerving.

This was a man who had fought and fought and not always won. Harry worried that he would fight and lose. He wouldn't get a chance to pick up those disfigurements. He wouldn't live long enough...

He kept those worries to himself, but he suspected the Flamels could read his face and see his mind revealed.

"I think you are becoming ready, Mr. Potter. But you do not have the luxury of time."

"No."

"Next year will be a hard trial. I've tried to derail Dumbledore's long-simmering plan. But I was unable, too much international pressure, too many of Dumbledore's supporters. This is planned as a kind of final monument to a 'great man.'"

"What will happen?"

"Next year a great and deadly tournament will come to Hogwarts. I will not be able to look out for you. And Minerva McGonagall is nowhere near my caliber nor Perenelle's. Nor even Albus Dumbledore's. Your fate will largely be in your hands, Mr. Potter. She will not have the skill, nor perhaps the inclination, to protect you."

At least he was being forewarned this time. "Might I know the name of this tournament so I can prepare?"

"It's called the Triwizard Tournament. It was ended long ago because of the death toll. Fools they are to resurrect it. Dumbledore...I wish I had realized early on what sort of fool he was."

Harry now knew, if the ghostly Dumbledore was anything like his once-living counterpart.

"I hear they plan to import dragons for it, if that gives you any sense of its reasonableness."

"As show pieces?" Harry asked, with a very bad feeling.

"No, for students to battle against," Professor Flamel said.

"I see," Harry said. He didn't even know where to begin when thinking about a dragon. His Sunfire spell would probably be useless. And dragon skin was a very effective armor. Could Fulmenifer pierce beyond it... His cutter, no, it would do nothing. Trickery? Deception? Sneaking? Perhaps. "Thank you. I will continue to prepare," Harry said, but he didn't know how.

"Your skill with a wand has increased since I met you. Keep working on it. Keep preparing. But try to think how your enemy thinks. Once you learn what he will do, take the longer view. Don't mess up his early move and allow him to try a second time. Figure out how to destroy him utterly at the end."

"Like how Professor Flamel goaded Madam Umbridge that day in class, then stuck a contract under her nose. She had been so angry she didn't even read it before signing it..."

"A fine bit of work," the Headmaster said. "Ended her. And brought four seats on the Board of Governors to an end. At least I've had a hand naming replacements. Two years is too little to do much, especially when the previous office holder had trained everyone available to help serve... Hogwarts is in a bad way at present."

Which confirms the whole thing had been well planned...and not just because they disliked Umbridge. They were thinkers.

These were some of the true lessons of Harry's years at Hogwarts. There was no course called How to Deal With Your Enemies, but it was surely being taught here under Headmaster and Professor Flamel. But not next year, unless Harry stepped up to fill in.

"I should get back to my friends," Harry said. "Thank you for all you've done."

"You're most welcome," Professor Flamel said. "Don't be surprised if we check in on you from time to time. Promising students, and we have had many, are the main reason we still hang about after all these years. The skilled ones, they really can keep surprising us. So learn and do us something interesting."

"That's my plan," Harry said.

"And that Lavender Brown is a pretty girl, but she just isn't right for you," Professor Flamel said.

Everyone had an opinion and all old women were matchmakers, weren't they?

Harry returned down the hallway before she could make another comment. Harry could hear both the Flamels laughing. Yes, they did still love life, didn't they? They were very dangerous and very interesting people.

X-X-X


	4. Year Four: Three Tournaments

Year Four: Three Tournaments

X-X-X

A/N: Fourth year for Harry is going to be very long. I've decided to break this up into shorter sections.

X-X-X

Harry tucked away his wand and stretched the fingers on his dominant hand. They'd been going numb from how he'd been holding his wand. It hadn't been like this with his holly and phoenix feather wand, which was now so much ash.

He'd had a magic-intensive morning shearing away worn runes on large stones. His job had been to render the stones harmless after someone else drained them of any magic. If Harry did his (underpaid, thankless, and tedious) work right, these stones wouldn't be trouble if they came in contact again with magic.

The job, so far, made Professor Binns seem like a moveable riot of fun.

Oh, well, he was learning a bit and he was surrounded by a kind of work (magical home deconstruction) that was similar to, if also opposite to, what he'd need to do on the Potter lands someday. He might be a dogsbody at the Black Mansion near Cherbourg in Normandy, but he was taking notes. Literally, in between all of the sweating and swearing. Oddly enough, he was frequently out of breath, but he was about as happy as he could ever remember being.

Being busy and being bored was actually okay for him right now...

He was two weeks into his summer break here. The other workers had gotten over their gawking at him, his missing scar, his missing finger. Sirius was close by, but not hovering. There were new workers in all the time and some of them took a day or two before someone used Harry's last time in their presence. Harry liked being just a dogsbody for a while, not Harry Potter, godson of the property's owner, the infamous Sirius Black.

Harry blended in, picking up some magical work, running around the huge estate finding people who were late, chatting with different folks at lunch. He usually stuck to dinners with his godfather.

He was so busy he didn't think as much as might expect about having only nine fingers – or about the warnings he'd received concerning the coming year and the prospect of dire trouble from Voldemort and his ideological brethren. He did not think about the new Minister across the English Channel, one of Voldemort's, a man called Nott.

The trouble was over there, across the Channel, for now. Harry was planning a bit, in the evenings, with Sirius. During the light hours, he worked with his shirt off. His tan this summer was better than it had ever been. He felt like he was strong, dangerous, even up to a challenge. All this dampness and anger, he'd left it behind in Scotland. It was waiting for him, of course, but it was off his shoulders for now.

"Potter, over here, work to be done." It was shouted at him in English.

Everyone else got shouted at in French or Italian for the stone masons from Genoa. At least everyone got shouted at by Guillaume Castar, the least happy person Harry had ever known (and that included his potions master at Hogwarts).

Harry jogged over to collect a fresh scowl from Guillaume, then got to work on what he thought he needed to be doing. Maybe.

Guillaume's accent speaking English left Harry guessing at one word in every four.

New cursebreakers had arrived the night before and were supervising the more tricky bits of dismantling the home's defenses. Harry had heard more than one person remark that they were still formidable for a structure that had been abandoned for close to fifty years. If it had been lived within recently, the whole project would have been tougher, much tougher.

It made Harry file a few mental notes about Godric's Hall and what had happened there. Had just two people, Harry's grandparents, been enough to keep the wards alive and happy there? How did a magical house work best? Every time Harry thought he'd learned a little bit, it just opened new questions for him to examine.

With all the new people around, you'd think things would be easier for Harry. Wrong. It was like he had Guillaume _and_ ten new bosses expecting him to run their errands. It was straight-up hazing, but not mean, so Harry didn't push the godfather card or the Harry-Potter-card. All these people who were used to rough sites in various deserts or swamps were still acting like fools and bullies...for now.

By the time dinner was served in the commissary tent, Harry could eat his weight in stew, he was sure of it.

How he hadn't sweated away to nothing, he wasn't sure.

Was he complaining? No, he loved it here, he realized. He loved being busy, even if that meant doing the most horrible, boring things. One might think that those two attributes didn't often go together, but they really did. Horrible and boring...

Harry knew he'd looked shocked when he was given some orders, but he had never complained. He just kept a careful watch on everything.

Sirius finally appeared for his evening meal and sat with Harry. "Good day, Harry?"

Harry quirked his head. "How were the cursebreakers?"

Harry assumed they'd be demanding, to him at least. It was likely they'd been far kinder to Sirius, their ultimate boss on the project.

"Nervous."

Harry shook his head, not understanding. Did Sirius the Azkaban prisoner still make even these sorts uncomfortable?

"Not about me, about this house. A primary residence for the House of Black. I've alluded to a few of the stories, Harry, but I also left out most of the worst bits. They're smart to be nervous."

"Oh," Harry said.

"Especially because I couldn't tell them much other than family legends. I was the heir, but the knowledge never got passed to me when I was a kid."

Harry wondered what the Potter family reputation had been. They'd hosted parties at their home that got photographed. They'd been noted donors to a few charities. But the Blacks had been in those pages, too. What was the real story - and who would be willing to share it with Harry?

"Any trouble?" Harry asked.

"They almost blew up the main building three times...no, four."

Harry put down his spoon. "What?"

"I got nervous, too, watching them almost set off traps."

Harry stared at Padfoot expecting more. Sirius attended to his food. Well, shocks of all shocks, Harry's godfather could exercise good judgment on which stories were not for sharing.

"I'd hope so," Harry said, giving up his nosiness as a lost cause. For now.

"You tired?" Sirius asked.

Yes. "Not really."

"I have a treat for you, if you'd like it."

Harry smiled. His godfather was doing so much better. He hoped it would last, but had no illusions on that front. "I'm not interested in a brothel or a bar," he snarked.

Sirius looked surprised at what Harry said, then barked with laughter. "First time I dragged your father to pick out a girl who was wearing nothing but a smile and a short robe..."

Damn. Harry forgot the first rule of pushing things with Padfoot: Don't. The man had his shame-gland removed at birth. "Sirius, I don't want to hear this..."

Sirius started laughing harder. Harry had the sense he'd been pranked. Son of a bitch.

"So, if you're not tired and you're not angry, I thought you might like to see a dueling hall."

All the anger in him over that 'prank' disappeared. Harry had heard the words 'dueling hall.' "Really?"

"One of the cursebreakers mentioned it at lunch. Tonight, at Delacours, on the Rue Magique in Paris. Nine o'clock."

"Yes." Harry had wanted to go since after the mock duel Hermione arranged between members of the Sundown family.

"Are you sure? You'll have to give up some of your obsessive wand practice."

Harry had been spending most of his evenings since arriving working on his spell casting. His new wand still wasn't quite as comfortable as his old phoenix feather and holly, the one Rookwood destroyed.

"I think I can miss a night, particularly for an educational trip."

"Oh, I think you'll learn a few things..."

Padfoot had that look again. Uh oh.

Then he snapped back into his 'trusty salesman' look. "A purse of about two hundred galleons to the winner. They use different coinage here, so that's the exchange rate. It's supposed to be four pits, sixteen to twenty matches total. Not a huge all-weekend thing, but fun?"

Yes, yes, yes, Harry thought. No matter what else Sirius had cooked up.

"Do I need to change my clothes? How do you dress for something like this?" For as famous as Harry was, he had been remarkably few places in his life. It felt nice to have someone, an older brother of sorts, to ask dumb questions of.

"Your wand needs to be in a wrist holster or left at the door. Do you have one?"

Harry shook his head.

Sirius left the tent and returned a few minutes later. The holster was black, but it rippled in the light. It was dragon leather of some sort. Sirius helped Harry find a comfortable way to wear it.

"Don't draw your wand inside the building unless I tell you or all hell breaks loose. You don't want to be in the middle of a fight with hundred armed people."

"No."

"They all know spells that shred right through shields. If it all goes to shit, not that I'd expect that from his dueling hall, I'll help you hide behind something..."

Sirius stared at Harry until Harry agreed.

His smiling godfather returned then. "I used to love going to these when I was on summer breaks. I'm glad to show you this."

X-X-X

Rue Magique, by itself, was worth the trouble of getting to Paris. It was at least as old and crooked as Diagon Alley in London, but it felt a little different, a bit lighter, a bit more whimsical, a bit more dangerous in the corners. It was all of stone, not a hint of wood visible anywhere, like it had grown up as a forest of sturdy boulders - and the human vendors had just hung signs and moved in their wares.

Sirius gave Harry time to gawk, then showed Harry where the event space was, then showed Harry to the wand shop.

"I have a wand," Harry said.

"You have an inferior match. You need something a lot closer."

Harry felt like arguing, but didn't. He had never bonded with his replacement well and it was as close as Ollivander had gotten. But there were some reasons, probably. Harry got the new wand when he was still under the effects of the cursed knife because his severed finger had been attached at the time.

Maybe it was best to make a clean break of things. A new wand it was.

The business was nowhere near as old as Ollivander's judging by the dust levels. The old woman at the desk looked at Harry as if he were a likely thief and didn't spare the suspicion for Sirius, either.

She let loose a torrent of French. Sirius responded. Harry decided he needed to become multilingual at some point. His hodge-podge of Latin wasn't worth much while on a trip.

"Well, child, tell me about your first wand, then this new one," the old woman said, finally regarding Harry as a customer and not a likely hoodlum.

Harry was a bit slow to respond to her. Her English was good. Her attitude was not.

Still, he provided the details she'd requested.

The woman made several wild, inflammatory claims about Ollivander wands ( _kindling, not worth a petrified shit, as beautiful as a dirt-stained cobblestone_ ) before she disappeared on a hunt for Harry's new wand.

Harry had kept his frown in check since the pain-in-the-ass had let loose a scowl at the notion of a phoenix feather in holly. Was there something wrong with Harry's first wand? There were about zero books concerning wandlore. That subject was apparently passed only from master to apprentice.

The first wands she suggested were disastrous. The next group saw the floor of the shop take on an extra three inches of water. Didn't all wand shops need a well-wetted floor in case of fire? The third batch... They got closer.

The correct wand was in the sixth batch. It was five minutes to nine before Harry left with a griffin claw and holly wand. It was already a better fit than his second Ollivander wand, which was now in a wand box.

"She was open late," Harry said, politely. He'd been trying to find something, anything, nice to say about her. That was what he arrived at without falling into either a minor or major lie.

"She's a bitch. She's open not out of kindness, but because of the dueling. She'll have a few more customers tonight."

"They'll break their wands?"

"It's possible."

Harry found it strange how keyed up he was to see all this.

The dueling hall or concert venue or whatever Delacours really was – it was crammed full when Harry paid for he and his godfather. It felt nice to spend the money he was earning on the job for something fun, first on a wand he didn't know he needed, then an hour or two of seeing duelists prove their worth.

Harry and Sirius didn't find seats, but found spots along the wall that gave a good view of two of the four dueling 'pits.' The matches began at ten after the hour. These weren't the drawn-out demonstration matches Harry had seen once before. These were quick, almost lawless and brutal. It was only Sirius commenting that kept Harry engaged in what was happening rather than cringing.

"The two using the right pit are much better than the other pair. Watch them, Harry."

Harry focused. He couldn't tell a difference, but he was willing to take advice.

"Look at the movement, the efficiency. It's hard to believe I was that good once, if not better. Now, I might last half a minute. I really need to get into fighting shape again."

"Sirius..."

"It's fine. And if it weren't, this isn't the place for that talk. Look at the grace of casting. Think of how many hours it took for them both to be wordless, using non-standard postures, using custom spells. These two are as good of amateurs as I've seen. Better than some veteran Aurors I knew."

"Were you an Auror?"

"Again, a topic for elsewhere, but no. I got the same type of training, from people who had once trained Aurors, but I didn't work for the Ministry."

And that was the most Sirius had ever said about the first war with the Death Eaters. Harry didn't push any further that night, just as Sirius rarely pushed Harry to talk about a dark, stormy night when Harry ended the life of a Death Eater named Rookwood. They each had their traumas and each kept them private.

Harry cast a glance at the rest of the room. A dueling stage on the other side of the room held one of the cursebreakers from the Black Mansion. Harry didn't know him except by sight.

Sirius tapped on Harry's shoulder. Back to the commentating. "Okay, watch, they're not tiring. They're speeding up. They've assessed each other. There. No, I saw it wrong. There..." One of the duelists had collapsed on the elevated stage.

"When it was time, it was like a snake pounced and a little mouse died."

"I don't understand any of it," Harry said. There were no words, no pauses, no explanations. It was a lot faster and less comprehensible than the mock duel that had taken place in the Gryffindor family room.

"Well, keep watching. I'll explain. I'm not good enough to do these things right now, but I could be."

"I'm not saying I want to leave."

Saying the word instantly made Harry dislike the idea. He was here, he was seeing things he'd never seen before, including Guillaume Castar in dueling robes about to walk onto a dueling stage.

It was overwhelming right now, but Harry could feel his interest growing. In the face of all that waited him back at Hogwarts, this looked like hope to him. Being strong, fast, skilled. This was a goal he could adopt for himself. He always felt better when he was working toward an answer to a problem, not ignoring the outside world.

"Okay, let's see who is up next," Sirius said. He eventually settled on commenting the Guillaume Castar match. He won it. (But he lost his second.)

Harry saw one man fighting largely with enchanted objects. Sirius had never seen a style like it, and the fighter lost, but seemed happy for how far he'd gotten. It seemed what he'd tried was a work in progress.

That idea was amazing. Some were here for glory. Some were here to test their skills. Some were here to try out things they'd just imagined...

There were problems, too. One man in a later match looked more battered than even Sirius' friend with the blue wandering eye – or Headmaster Flamel wearing his true face. Harry wondered if the man had become mangled in battle or on another dueling stage some other time. This was entertainment, but it was also violence.

Harry had done more violence than he ever spoke about, but it wasn't something he liked or considered an achievement. He didn't get up on a stage and show off like this... Maybe that was why he'd had to spend a while getting comfortable with all of this. It was very different from what he was used to.

As the night wore on, Harry could see more and understand more of what he was seeing. The hall staff had to stop some of the matches and explain why. Others commented briefly, and informally, on what impressed them. Plus Sirius would note what he liked and answer Harry's questions.

Three people lost when their wands were destroyed, so that crabby wand-seller would get to vent on a few new customers tonight.

The first and second round matches continued until close to midnight. None of the contenders were cleared by a healer to continue at that point so it was settled by points.

By that time, Harry had seen more than a handful of formal duels and understood a lot more about how magic could be used outside of a classroom. He was still boggled by the speed. These people could fight.

It was inspiring and not a little overwhelming... Harry even said so.

"That was advertised as amateur, but these folks are all a few steps beyond that," Sirius said. "I hope you had fun."

"Yes," Harry said, after the last pit cleared. He was trying to figure out how they decided who got the purse. It seemed there was a scoring system in place. The purse-winner had won two matches, but so had two other people. There was something about him achieving a higher score than anyone else. Harry figured he'd do better to find a book on dueling styles than to ask Sirius about the points just now.

"Do you think I can get better, get like them?" a tired Harry asked. Not meaning dueling for sport, but fighting with the same kind of skill and energy for a cause, say defending his life against a lunatic.

Sirius smiled. "I do, absolutely."

They slipped out into the night with no one aware that Sirius Black or Harry Potter had attended at all. Harry began to see further possibilities for his own future. This struck him the same way Quidditch did: interesting, but not something he would likely love. He love the basic element, like flying or working spells, but there was something about performing in front of a crowd...

Harry breathed easier as he slipped into dreams. He didn't know it, but he was finally beginning to heal, and the hardest part. The broken bones were mended, his hand was uncursed, the stub of his missing pinky finger was healed. Now his mind was mending or reforming itself.

X-X-X

Harry had been promoted at the beginning of August from general dogsbody ( _strike off these runes, levitate those beams out of the way, get this area swept up, get me a big pot of strong tea and some clean cups, track down Stinky Ben and send him to the basement in the main house, hey don't forget to eat lunch before you collapse_ ) to the kid who was forced to endure Old Spencer's stories and keep the senior senior senior cursebreaker from causing trouble on the site.

Today's story or rant was bemoaning that all the stone in the buildings on this property would have to be hauled out to sea and dumped before the land could be sold to muggles. (If that was true, why was a team draining the magic and why had Harry spent so many hours cleaving off the runes?)

"Old stones on old land pick up a family's magic, very useful," Old Spencer said, again. He shook his head, again, because the future purpose of this property was non-magical.

"Don't be a fool, boy. You have stone like this, you keep it. You keep your family land close, including the stone that was on it."

Harry agreed, of course, and planned to do just that, not that he'd told anything to Old Spencer, the nosy old codger.

But knowing the why behind this rant could be useful...

So, as Harry was supposed to keep Old Spencer well entertained, Harry asked, "Why?"

It was like pulling a critical stone out of a precarious dam, the words rushed and thundered and attempted to drown. Old Spencer was finally huffing a bit, short of breath. He was also calmer and distracted finally.

This seemed to be the reason he was assigned his own helper, so as to wear out the Great Spencer, as he referred to himself more than once, someone to ask questions of his stories or rants. Someone to trigger floods and explosions, someone to keep him reminiscing and not helping.

Spencer jabbed his fingers toward the tea pot and Harry made more. How the man wasn't all water and no tongue by now, it seemed impossible. The old cursebreaker swallowed down yet more tea and seemed to rediscover his purpose. "Don't dispose of old stone like that if its from your family – and don't trust stone if it's from another. Sounds superstitious, but probably not."

This odd fierceness was nothing new to Harry. He heard about three fervent lectures with only himself in attendance each day.

This guy wasn't short like Madam Spurl nor did he bear her level of wrinkles, but he had the same kind of flame inside his mind. When Harry had mentioned her name, he'd learned that Spencer had been her apprentice back when Victoria was about to end her reign. Maybe working with Madam Spurl induced a very specific kind of insanity?

Harry wondered if his working with Old Spencer was random chance (unlikely), something Madam Spurl had arranged (likely), or something Sirius had settled on (almost as likely).

Harry had figured out how to make the most of the time. He wrote down what he learned or what books Old Spencer mentioned. He did get some good information in between all his stumbling into very strange, but very sensitive topics.

Harry had found Old Spencer willing to explain many of the runestones they'd taken out of the old Black Mansion. Harry had gotten a better head for the positions needed to make runes work (normal rune versus upside down versus a left-to-right flip versus one shifted ninety degrees, plus a number of carving tricks that effected how the runes worked).

Taking runes as a class, then doing this for the summer, was like learning what a chicken was in class, with all the formal names for the different parts, then spending a few weeks being shown how to turn a good chicken into a very fine meal. Spencer for all his oddness was a master practitioner. A cursebreaker who had more than dabbled in laying runes into buildings like houses and perhaps larger structures.

Spencer's mind, and incipient rant, had doddered off into other uses for stone when a scream, then several screams, ended the lesson.

Harry checked for his wand then bounded from the room.

"No one told us the Orangerie was haunted. Vicious shits. Three people are bleeding and a few are trapped, something is blocking their apparition." That was Guillaume Castar screaming.

Harry frowned but took a second to parse what he'd heard. Ghosts couldn't attack, not to his knowledge. He wasn't a master of the field, but he'd been stalked for a good eighteen months by a persistent, doddery ghost who always sounded disappointed. Then there was Peeves. He could hurt by throwing things, but Harry had never heard of him drawing blood or trapping people.

Wraith? Something else. Harry was trying to remember what spirits he'd read about in different books. He'd never gotten into the Restricted Sections at Hogwarts, so he knew his knowledge was incomplete.

A spirit...

Harry diverted from the path to the Orangarie and ran to his tent and picked up an item from his trunk, his anti-spirit medallion.

He guessed it did have a range.

Maybe Harry's token in his tent had already driven the spirit from the main house to the Orangerie?

It was time to drive it further away.

Harry knew enough from the Trimble books, and others, not to attempt to dispel a spirit near to anything of value. The curse that resulted could inhabit the land, any buildings, and the people who were there at the time...

And Harry had already been around for several odd interactions, like twice being attacked with a killing curse by something that was no longer quite human. That was something for later consideration.

Harry didn't take the shortest path to the Orangerie, just the path he'd used before to get there. The grounds were massive and overgrown and there were known dangerous plants present. Sirius had arranged for a team of herbologists to come and deal with the madness, but they weren't arriving until the following Wednesday.

Harry got to the Orangerie and found the tension breaking. Those trapped were released. His little bit of steel had charged ahead of him and pushed the ghost or wraith away. Guillaume Castar was now one of the ones who was bloodied. In the time between when he was gathering people and when Harry arrived with his medallion, Guillaume had gone in to help. It hadn't worked, but this was a braveness Harry hadn't seen before in the foreman. Harry had mostly thought him a kind of bully, an asshole. It seemed he also cared about his people - or his reputation.

The difference? One made him sound more humane - and one proved him a huge jerk. Harry was torn about where the truth lay.

Harry began ferrying water to and from those who needed it. The injured could have been levitated away, but no one was pushing hard on that idea just yet. Nor would they, given that Guillaume Castar looked to have taken the most damage out of anyone on the grass. He would normally be the one to call off any slackness or gossip.

The people who had come to fight the wraith clung around, though they didn't venture deep into the surrounding woods.

They found it to be a poor idea as the wraith returned when Harry was away from the building – or, more precisely, when Harry's anti-spirit medallion was away.

It was nearly dark when seven witches and wizards managed to catch the thing, and what an ugly thing it was. It didn't resemble any ghost or poltergeist Harry had heard of. The closest comparison Harry could think of was a Dementor sans cloak. It was that awful.

Sirius ran into the area, noticed Harry, and shot him a panicked look demanding he leave.

Harry retreated from the chaos a bit and the ghost-like thing stopped thrashing so much. But Harry didn't leave completely. He had as much curiosity as anyone else. He realized his medallion was causing problems. Harry dropped the anti-spirit medallion behind a big stone that had been placed at the junction of two walkways. He stayed away, until Sirius began sobbing.

Harry had never seen his godfather sob, not even over the deaths he had known or his maltreatment at Azkaban or anything... Here he was sobbing, and over the ghost-thing.

Harry snuck closer.

"We need to move him...," one of the cursebreakers said. Harry didn't know his name, but had seen him sitting at the table with some he did know.

This one had taken over from Guillaume Castar maybe?

"His name was Regulus," Sirius said.

"You know this ghost. Why didn't you say anything about a house ghost..."

Sirius looked furious. "He was my brother before his death and whatever else happened to him."

Harry teared up hearing those words.

What a way to find a sibling.

Harry couldn't imagine what his godfather was feeling right now. Being an orphan was one kind of hell. Being a brother to a tormented ghost... There were no words fit for service.

"We've been in the house for weeks. In the Orangerie for a few days. He wasn't at any of them until today."

"He joined Voldemort. We assumed he died. Someone must have summoned him here and forced him to stay."

"Are there necromancers in your family?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Has he been stuck here all this time?" Sirius demanded.

"We don't know."

"Merlin," Sirius said. "My crazy mother did this or had it done. I never... I don't see how... I curse her. I damn her."

Sirius stopped crying. Harry walked slowly to his godfather and stood next to him.

"I thought you were supposed to be away from here," Sirius said to Harry.

"I was," Harry said. "You look like you needed some help."

Sirius was more lost now than when Harry had first met him in St. Mungo's. "I knew Reg was dead. Dead, not this. We can't leave him in pain... Now I'm going to have to find a way to kill him again."

They stood and looked at the horror in the distance. The cursebreakers were talking or shouting amongst themselves. For all their experiences and training, they were baffled.

These masters of the craft, some of whom had apparently dabbled in necromancy though they were coy about admitting it.

Harry watched, listened, and learned. His main revelation was disquieting: no man was infallible. Harry had gotten that recently from some mournful words from Headmaster and Professor Flamel who had felt guilty for Harry being attacked at Hogwarts more than once – then again from his impetuous godfather.

Everyone wished to protect the world, the impossible dream; all good people felt the sting when their aspirations fell short of their actual capabilities. That was the way you knew to split the good from the bad. The bad failed and drowned themselves in drink or pretended they didn't care or laughed at the chaos. The good ones got up and tried it again and tried to do it better.

Harry would do what he could, if he were allowed. At the least, he would assist Sirius with this new devastation. He would listen and learn. He wouldn't let this stand.

X-X-X

The next morning, Harry left his tent and went to collect his anti-spirit medallion. He'd left it outside overnight when he had to help Sirius into Harry's tent, then this morning he'd had to pry his godfather's fingers off an empty bottle of something that had made Harry's eyes water. Harry had vowed that he would never drink if it all smelled like that. (He also needed to figure out where the bottle had come from. Had Sirius left in the night before stumbling back? Did his tent come equipped with a secret, emergency stash of horrible smelling alcohol?)

He turned around and set a little spell on the 'door' to the room Sirius was sleeping in at Harry's tent. Harry would know when his godfather woke. People called it a ward, but it was really just a charm. Hang around cursebreakers long enough and they'd tighten up your understanding of magic, have no doubt.

Harry jogged through the cool grounds and found the item he'd dropped last night. He stuffed it into his pocket He thought about returning it to his tent, but he was running a little late. His charge for the day was probably already making noise about Harry being late.

Harry arrived at the Spencer tent and settled into being a minder or dogsbody or paid listener. Old Spencer was not yet up and moving about. Perhaps he was one of the ones called over to consult on the 'ghost' problem? If Harry were lucky, Old Spencer would sleep away half the morning.

Harry thought about his relative, of sorts, being held by cursebreakers. 'Regulus Black.'

Poor Sirius. His godfather might not recover from this mess if it kept on too long or got too involved. There were deep wells of feeling, good and bad, that Sirius had for his late, younger brother. Harry had guessed a little before yesterday, but now he knew. This was the kind of emotion that could make a man great with resolve or mad with grief or insane with longing. No way to tell which way the situation might break.

Harry vowed to keep a strict eye on Sirius.

Old Spencer was not cooperating, however. The aged cursebreaker shambled into the room from a doorway Harry had never seen before. He caught a glimpse of books inside before the door closed and the whole doorway disappeared from his sight.

Now that was a lovely sort of spell.

"Get the tea, would you? Double the oolong of normal. I need a good jolt, my boy," Spencer said.

"Did you not sleep?" Harry asked, as he scurried to his tasks.

"No, I'm in charge of this mess while that arse Castar is down. Didn't he recognize a revenant when he saw one? His reputation holds that he has handled all sorts of dark issues, including the malevolent spirits. He got himself hurt and he came off as a twit."

Old Spencer grinned, but did not laugh.

Harry wasn't up for either, given the revenant's connection to his godfather.

"A revenant?" Harry asked.

"I'd be shocked if a schoolboy knew what one was. So good on you for not dabbling above your skill level, good way to get yourself dead."

And Harry already had enough of those. He finished preparing Spencer's tea and took it to him.

The man took a sip, ready to complain, then found nothing to mutter about. He took a full drink. "That horrible vision yesterday is what we call a revenant, a summoned and bound spirit."

"Like a poltergeist?"

"In a way. But a revenant does not occur naturally. It's specifically called for and bound, weren't you listening?"

Figure the House of Black to torture its own members even after their deaths...

"So what do you do now?"

"Thing's very difficult to dispel unless you know how it was done and have a clear method for reversal."

"And you don't know..."

"We only searched the main house again last night, that's when we found that damnable hidden basement. Sodding hidden rooms, sealed from the inside."

"Oh."

"He managed to free himself and move away. Why? How? No clue, yet. The runework to hold in a revenant, well, that's not something you see every century – or ever. Fascinating and quite revolting."

Harry felt dirty just hearing all this.

"Any ideas?" Spencer asked.

Harry had a sense of how it got free. His anti-spirit medallion... But Harry just shrugged.

"If anyone had an idea, I'd put my galleons on you."

"Why?"

"You are just trouble wherever you go."

"I am not," Harry said.

"So, some young Hogwarts student used a fire spell, a rather forgotten one, against a Dementor last year – and not only did the spell chase the demon off, it eventually, and we're talking weeks later, killed it. Know anything about that?"

"You've been checking up on me?"

"Well, not me, not at first. But I am here because I got a howler from an old mentor of mine. And I do mean old. The pipes on her. You'd think they'd fade, but no."

He had to be talking about Madam Spurl. How was she keeping up on Harry all the way from Mexico? And why?

"Teach me right, not checking for something grim like that on a property owned by a family known to be as dark as it was. Teach us all to be more careful here," Spencer said as he pushed his cup back at Harry, which was apparently his polite way of asking for more tea.

Sirius had only hinted at how his family was. I mean, abandoning your family as a teenager and essentially getting yourself adopted into another family said something, but this? Harry foresaw rough days ahead as all of Sirius' old wounds were reopened and weeping.

Harry refilled the cup. He had made plenty after having done this ritual with Old Spencer more than a few times. This time the tea was a bit cool, which the cursebreaker did grouse about. But he drank it down anyway.

"So I don't know exactly what you did to unloose that thing..."

Harry would have liked to be indignant at the accusation, but he refrained. It was likely true.

There was also the probability that Spencer had an idea now of what public project Harry had done in Ancient Runes last year. Harry had mentioned it to Sirius who couldn't hold a secret longer than eight and a half minutes on a good day.

"I think I would like to see this project of yours," Old Spencer said. "Show me."

Harry pulled the medallion from under his shirt and handed it over.

Spencer nodded, turned it over, looked at it from several angles. "Not a bad start."

It worked. Professor Babbling had made it work. Why did he consider it a start?

Harry's face must have given away his confusion.

"Well, it's not finished. How do you turn it off?" Spencer asked.

"Off?" That wasn't at all part of the design. Why would Harry want to turn it off while he was at Hogwarts? Play disgusting games with Peeves, listen to the shade of Dumbledore yammer on.

"You can't bring something like this to an unknown site if you were an active cursebreaker. Look at what happened. It drove a bound revenant to escape his confinement. The agitation, the pain, it must have taken to drive him out..."

Harry closed his eyes. Yes, he had wondered before, but now he knew. He had freed the thing. Time for a different topic.

"About that ghost-thing... How will you make it go away?"

"It's not going to be easy. We can't do it here. The curse would last decades if not longer."

"Can't you get the summoner to just send him back?"

Spencer shook his head. "We found the man who summoned and bound the spirit..."

"So he can undo it?" Harry asked.

"Best we can tell, he was murdered in that room in 1982 or '83. So, I think he won't be so helpful."

This was the other side of the magical world, past the amazement that Harry sought and often found was the horror. The Black or Blacks who had commissioned this work had finished the commission not with coin but with murder. And Old Spencer didn't seem very surprised at all.

"Well, what do we do about my medallion?" Harry asked.

Spencer picked the thing up, made a paper copy of the runes in the correct orientation, and set the medallion on a table. Then he shot a powerful cutting spell and the token was in two pieces, broken almost perfectly into halves.

Harry picked them up.

"Now, my student, now we make you something better. And you learn what you did wrong the first time."

And Old Spencer once again had a purpose. He sounded more amused now than worried or angry.

Harry just nodded. Here he had been so proud of it... And it had just brought trouble – dislodged a little truth – and brought folks to tears or cut them to bloody ribbons. Yes, Harry had to learn. Disasters were a part of it at his level, knowing a little but not enough, able to do some dangerous things yet not able to foresee the dangers.

With these experiments, it wasn't enough to get close. He had to get things right, precisely right. And there Harry's curiosity flared again.

"I'd like to know what I did wrong. This was changed, on the fly, from my original sketch..."

"Go get your notes then we'll take it apart together, Mr. Potter. Hop, hop. I might just forget my own name if you dawdle too long."

Harry carried out the halves of his first runic work when he left to collect his notes. He was nowhere near as distraught as his godfather but he was not a happy person just then. It might be nice to have a hard project to work on, and keep his mind at full distraction. The topic of spirits was just a little close to the main disturbance here to be comfortable.

X-X-X

Harry was exhausted and it was barely after breakfast. If he'd thought Hogwarts was gossip-central, he had never envisioned a camp culture surrounding some cursebreaking contract. These adults shared news faster than lightning split the sky.

Harry had had to produce the pieces of and describe his newly crafted anti-spirit medallion about nine times while he was trying to eat his eggs and sausages. The folks just plunked themselves down at his table and demanded, curious as could be and not angry. Then again Harry hadn't yet met any of those wounded by the revenant.

Then Harry was prodded into telling a few stories. Madam Spurl had been talking, it seemed, and not just to Old Spencer. And almost all of these people at least knew the old cursebreaker, knew her enough to fear her or hate her. A few had expressed more gentle sentiments.

It was Harry reminding folks he had been hit with a Killing Curse (he didn't mention the second time it had happened, not yet, damn his loose lips) that got the cursebreakers casting spells on him.

A curious bunch with no reserve, no limits to what they might say or ask, and no sense whatsoever of shame. Harry had been stripped half naked, laid out on a table, and poked and prodded by cursebreakers, a few of whom had mediwitch credentials. Many cursebreaking sites were no where near as cushy as this one so folks needed a whole range of skill sets in order not to die in the wilderness or the desert or some inhospitable swamp.

Harry heard the narration of his health. He found himself choking down potions of dubious origin and unpalatable flavor. He found himself being turned over and subjected to more indignities. All he needed was some photograph-happy kid named Colin Creevey to document all this for his humiliation to really burn.

It really was like being kidnapped and held against his will, even if he recognized everyone involved.

Was this his punishment for the medallion and setting free a terror on the camp? Or was it just a hazing, getting welcomed into this group? Or was Harry just going to provide these men and women stories so they get free drinks at any pub they visited for the next five years. ' _Did I ever tell about this interesting mole that Harry Potter had on the back of his neck? Kid was so pale, he needed to hit the nude beaches and put some color on himself because white is just wrong._ ' This had to be a form of child abuse.

Plus, as for pale, this was the darkest Harry had ever tanned. Ever. This wasn't pale, not at all.

"I'm reading a curse here," a woman said. Harry thought she was usually called The Talon, with both words sounding like proper names.

"A curse? An active curse?" some man asked. He was German maybe. Polish?

"Nasty one," The Talon said.

"Let me see. I did my master's work on curses...," another man interjected. A Spaniard.

"I found it, Mr. Master."

Now they were fighting over Harry's curses while he was laid out half nude on his breakfast table. And he hadn't even had his breakfast. He could smell it. He could imagine it was fairly cold by this point, too.

Harry should have stayed in his tent this morning.

He'd expected a little verbal poking over his dislodging a revenant, not getting stripped down and receiving the most thorough medical check up he'd ever heard of. When were they going to demand a stool sample and some blood?

Harry pushed himself off the table, pulled on his shirt, thanked them for not stripping off his trousers or anything else (with much sarcasm), and asked for an explanation.

Harry insisted when more of them wanted to run further tests.

Harry insisted when more people came into the tent after hearing the rumors.

He insisted even harder when some rumors drug Sirius, who looked like crud that had been stepped on before rotting in the sun, into the dining tent with wide eyes and a shocked look on his face. "A curse? What kind of curse?" Sirius demanded before coughing and searching for coffee or bourbon.

He had another weight to crush him.

Harry couldn't even begin to calm Sirius down from this. He tried and failed.

That day ended up being a wash when it came to progress on Black Mansion.

Between every cursebreaker in Western Europe coming to ogle Harry in various states of undress (and more than one woman and several men telling him _puberty had been very kind to him_ ), in addition to numerous healers and whatever random strangers bullshitted their way in, they came up with a verdict: whatever happened to Voldemort in 1981 had had effects similar, but not identical, to what happened when a ghost was exorcised.

The house in Godric's Hollow, the nearby neighbors, and Harry himself had been hit with one or more curses which had been in effect since, though slowly degrading.

Sirius, now given a task, namely getting Harry fixed, was almost sane again so long as no one mentioned 'ghost,' 'revenant,' 'Regulus,' or 'Black.'

It was Harry who broke a little, dreaming of a more peaceful life where he had had his parents back and hadn't been suffering from indeterminate bad luck curse.

The cursebreakers settled on a plan of attack about seven o'clock that night. The healers finally consented around eleven. Then Harry spent about twenty minutes screaming. After Sirius forced Harry to eat then had a mediwitch shove a Dreamless Sleep potion into Harry's hand.

"It'll be better tomorrow," Sirius said.

"I hope so," Harry said, then he drank.

He hoped doubtfully that tomorrow and the following days would be free of jokes about Harry being naked in the dining tent. He felt grateful that the curse was gone. The ridiculousness of how it was discovered – he would just have to live with it.

He was asleep a few moments after crawling into the bed in his tent.

X-X-X

"Can you talk to him?" Harry asked.

"I've tried," Sirius said.

"Can he understand?"

"He's in pain, so much pain."

"Because of the way they're holding him?"

"Because of the way he was summoned, I think. It wasn't anything you did with that medallion. This has been his 'life' since 1983." Sirius sobbed.

Harry had cleared his tent of any of the secret stashed of liquor that Sirius confessed he had stashed here the summer before, in case things got too tense. Sirius hadn't been coping well from Azkaban, then this had brought it all to a boil.

"It'll be okay," Harry said, knowing that it wouldn't.

So many things in the world would never be okay. But Harry had to push forward, hard. He had Sirius to patch up, then he had the dread of returning to Hogwarts for something that was likely a trap. He had worked on things a little, but not enough. He had been enjoying the 'peace' of this place a little too much. Then there was no concentrating at all when chaos like this erupted.

"It'll be okay," Sirius said, not believing it.

"The plan..."

"I'm not stopping it."

"Okay."

"I should say goodbye," Sirius said.

He made no effort to leave the tent.

Harry thought that Sirius had already said goodbye.

"Would you eat something?" Harry asked.

"No."

To their mutual surprise, Harry did cook something (chicken, potatoes, onions, peas) and Sirius ate two helpings.

"I can't see Regulus again."

"That's okay," Harry said.

"I can't even bring myself to find someone who can curse my mother for what she had done. Or maybe she did it herself."

"That's okay."

"He was my little brother. He was mine to protect. And I didn't."

And there was the source of all of the grief. For Regulus. Probably for James Potter, too. Sirius had been raised, oddly enough, with the mentality to protect only those who were valuable. And everyone, or close to everyone, was dead.

"Are you going to watch tomorrow?"

"No."

"Oh," Harry said.

"I got us something to do in England."

"You did?"

"I arranged it before we found my brother, but I'm not changing anything."

"What are we doing?"

"We're taking my tent to the Quidditch World Cup."

Harry blinked. He'd forgotten it was this year - or that it was set for England. "Oh."

"Did you make any pudding?" Sirius asked.

Harry hadn't, but he scrounged around and came up with something. It was good that they were both eating. Between Harry feeling guilt over dislodging the revenant (then recovering from a long-lingering curse) and Sirius being pulled like taffy between various miseries, they hadn't been eating well, even in the dining hall.

The next morning was the roughest day Sirius had ever faced. The cursebreakers, well supplemented with people who had dabbled in exorcisms and necromancy and other suspect arts, had bullied the revenant of Regulus Black aboard a wooden boat that was prepared for a ritual. A larger ship pulled the boat out into open water where a ritual was conducted from other boats close by. They hadn't cursed the water as badly as that section of the ocean was cursed near Bermuda, but it wouldn't exactly be safe to try some stupid boating stunt out there for the next two decades or better.

Sirius had perked up after, strangely. Harry had expected him to get worse. Now he was acting better, more engaged. All he said aloud: "Regulus now has a chance at peace. I hope he can find it and walk it."

X-X-X

They arrived by portkey that afternoon. It was the end of August, one of the roughest months of Harry's life, but Harry could feel his godfather responding to the literal magic in the air surrounding the World Cup Stadium.

Sirius Black was coming alive like some abused plant finally put out in the sun during a cloudless sprinkle. Harry felt it, too, and he was willing to let it in. After the summer they'd both had, Harry was willing to let a little external happiness in.

Harry got their campground assignment from a rather absent-looking older woman. He said hello to a few Hufflepuffs who had not endeared themselves to Harry on a trip into Hogsmeade with Susan Bones. Still, he was polite. Figuring out if any of them could be real friends was worth swallowing down some irritating memories.

Harry and Sirius took about three minutes to lay out the tent Sirius had bought for the event. Then Sirius waved his wand and cast a silent spell. The tent unfolded itself and rose into the air. This was so not fair. Harry had gotten a simpler tent without the self-unfurling charms. He actually had to do the work by hand, at least when he first used the tent near Godric's Hall. Sirius had helped when they'd moved to Black Manor.

The tent Sirius had selected was ridiculous. The pair of outdoor fountains burbled. The crenellations on top of the main structure each bore different flags. All that was missing were a pair of emus wearing tiny golden chains... Wait, didn't the Malfoys supposedly have albino peacocks? Hmm, Sirius might need something showier than that.

"Do you have the brooms still? We could play that game on the ice again?" Harry asked.

"Are you trying to kill me? My joints still ache from that."

"If we were both laughing..." That was enough.

Sirius turned toward the World Cup Stadium. "When I arranged for tickets, they tried to give me the top box with Minister Nott. I was puzzled so I asked around. No one is up there with him yet. The way Fudge went, people are saying Nott had a hand in it—"

"Fudge was Kissed in the chaos around Bellatrix Lestrange attacking a Quidditch match...," Harry said, interrupting.

"Or Nott arranged for it, the rumor goes. That Dolores Umbridge might have pushed for Dementors to be used at Hogwarts, but once she fell, Nott didn't persuade Fudge otherwise."

Harry shrugged.

"Or, Fudge died from a curse on the Minister's office and Nott would be subject to the same curse."

Harry almost tipped over into laughter. Almost. "Now Ministers are cursed, too? I thought it was just Professors of Defense?" And even that had been remedied.

"Well, wizards know curses are real so they don't have to continue thinking about tricky things. 'Must be a curse.' There was a curse running wild at Hogwarts for decades."

"I remember."

"As for Minister Nott, I think folks fear for their lives around that guy."

Harry kept hearing things like that.

"He's a piece of evil even when he seems happy. Piss him off... He makes Azkaban look like a sunny beach resort."

"I've never had the pleasure," Harry said.

"Me either. My father's generation. Supposedly a friend of my mother's, more like her crony. You can bet I want nothing to do with him, save for maybe actually cursing him."

Being back in England had lessened some of the magic he'd felt about being at the Quidditch World Cup. His troubles had been here waiting for him to return. This time, there would be no Flamels to help or advise. Of course, there had been no Flamels when Harry had been in the Forbidden Forest on a rainy night, either, losing a finger from his hand and taking the life of a madman.

Harry must have been frowning.

"No, no, no. Enjoy the day," Sirius demanded.

Harry smiled a smile he did not exactly feel. "I will."

He tried.

"It's sunny. People are happy. Every bit of air feels like magic."

That was true. The magic of the space was enough to help Harry to forget. They bought junky little trinkets and ate gobs of fried foods and more sweets than he'd consumed in his entire childhood.

Remus Lupin arrived while Harry and Sirius were sitting out near the over-the-top fountains in front of his tent. The babble of water almost drowned out the neighbors and the occasional explosions and fireworks that exploded in the sky.

Sirius and Remus were still trying to settle on a new friendship after many years of interruption. It seemed good, but it also had its rocky moments. Perhaps they were both still morning their third friend, Harry's father?

They reverted to simple nostalgia, but that wouldn't keep a modern friendship alive, Harry thought. He kept prodding them to talk about the here and now. But Sirius made jokes and Remus closed up like someone with secrets, or unpleasant truths, to hide.

At one point, Harry offered Neville Longbottom a chair when he wandered past. Neville looked better than he ever had, but stayed only a few minutes, citing family duties. That wasn't even enough to get him frowning. Whatever had happened to Neville with the Dementors last year, and the follow-up by Professor Flamel, was continuing to help Harry's friend. He mentioned he had an uncle and cousins to handle. Rather than crumpling, he just rolled his eyes and wandered off. Neville and happiness were no longer complete strangers to each other.

Harry saw more Hufflepuffs he had met and a few Gryffindors he was friendly with. He saw no Weasleys, though. Harry thought that the letter from the twins, with a little scrawl at the bottom from Ron, said they were coming.

Would they be late to this, too? Or were they just lost? It really was a massive gathering.

"Shall we go claim our seats?" Sirius asked.

"Won't we be ridiculously early?"

"We'll eat something again..."

Harry almost groaned because he already had a cannonball in his stomach.

"But you go early to watch all the stupidity in the stands. We have what I'm told are good seats for people watching. We're not too high up: those seats are better for the Quidditch."

"Sounds good," Harry said.

"I understand we'll get to see some veela. Lovely and terrifying, just my cup of tea."

Sirius might not be back to wholly healthy, but his smirk-smile was in full working order. Even Remus laughed this time. Harry, Sirius, and Remus went to the stadium, then.

X-X-X

The World Cup match was a vigorously contested match that didn't last so long it lost the fans or allowed them long enough to drink themselves stupid. After all, what happened did involve more than a few injuries, quite a few possibly questionable calls from the referee, and not a little drama from the two team mascots.

In short, it was about as perfect a spectacle as one could hope for, proving veela were scary and leprechauns were both real and not a little stupid.

Ireland won, but Bulgaria seemed the pluckier team. It was almost like they both won, except that only one team actually did.

Harry and Sirius big Remus a good night as he apparated away, then they walked through the masses of spectators. Sirius recounted a few of his favorite moments and almost got himself into a fist-fight when he praised Bulgaria in front of an Irish witch. Fierce and unyielding even in the face of victory.

Harry wondered aloud if he might enjoy trying a few of those trick moves, not on a Quidditch pitch where there were bludgers in motion, though. Just for fun.

"Did you see the top box?" Sirius asked.

"No."

"I glanced up there a few times. It was Nott and the announcer and no one else. He really is thought to be cursed..."

As someone who had actually carried a curse for many years, Harry was less amused, but he grinned back anyway.

It was too happy a place just then, save for the major fans of the Bulgarian team. But Harry had no ability to be sour just then. Everyone else was shouting with happiness or looking like their homes had been set on fire, which was also sort of amusing in a mean way.

What amused Harry was that he had learned a bit about himself: he thought he could physically do the kinds of things that Krum and Lynch had done in the air... But he had no interest in doing it in front of an audience. It would be a sour thing for him to do those stunts for praise or money. If he did them, it would be for love of flying alone.

"Are you hungry?" Harry asked.

"I shouldn't be. All we've done is eat. But, yes, I think I am," Sirius said.

"Good. I murder a roast beef or some potatoes."

They settled for sausages over a fire back at Sirius' overgrown tent. Harry admitted he'd never cooked on an open flame before. Sirius looked aghast.

While Harry tended the fire, Sirius magicked them up some seating. Harry's godfather chatted with the passersby about his ridiculous tent while Harry cooked. Harry wound up feeding quite a few visitors, most of them strangers, a few some of the useless toffs who worked at the Ministry and 'investigated' the bad things that had happened at Hogwarts in Harry's first year – Harry kept a weather eye on them. Not to say that Harry did all the work and starved for it. Harry ate four and Sirius ate at least eight but claimed it was only five. The liar. At least he no longer looked like a skeleton that unburied itself and set to wandering the world.

Harry went to sleep a bit early, but well filled and amused.

He, of course, did not remain asleep for long.

The noises coming from outside did not directly penetrate the premium tent Sirius had. But the ward monitor sounded when some magic splashed against the tent.

Harry was up dressing in a moment. What was going on? Drunken idiots? Or another Rookwood-fiend enjoying easy pickings among the drunk and bemused?

Sirius was awake and blinking in the hallway. He tried to volunteer himself to investigate, by which he meant to keep Harry inside in relative safety.

That was not the way things went, of course.

X-X-X

It was madness in the dark outside. There was screaming. There were flashes of spells, violent looking things that might burn or cut or tear. Harry didn't see the diviso in use, but he recognized things he'd seen at the dueling hall in Paris. A pity he hadn't had time to put names to the spells he'd seen.

There was also screaming: that was the part Harry couldn't get past.

He ran toward the noise even though Sirius was beginning him to slow down or stop.

There were children in that crowd of evil, small children screaming, non-magical children by the way they were dressed.

Harry sent stunners which were batted away. He faced returns of purple and orange spellfire near where he'd been standing.

The screaming intensified. The children were being punished for Harry's gentle attempt to free them...

Harry lost all reason and set aside all restraints. He assessed how the cloaked and masked men stood and loosed a water globe at them. Before it landed, Harry sent the most anger-filled Fulmenifer he could muster.

Harry about blinded himself. There were a thousand branches of the most deadly tree to every visit earth, lightning that sought out people, to hurt them and make them scream.

Harry blinked and had to listen to new screams, the screams of adults, ones who dressed in robes and masks and used vile spells because they were drunk and cruel and thought themselves untouchable.

Harry thought of harming them further, but he remembered the children.

Sirius had finally caught up to Harry. "We need to get the kids," was all Harry said.

Sirius took in what had happened – and said nothing. His jaw was set though his face was disbelieving. That Harry had done this and could do this. He had the skills to ignite a momentary lightning storm on a clear, dark evening. It was a precision attack against almost two dozen men – and they were incapacitated. Sirius didn't mutter, "How?" Though he was clearly thinking it.

Sirius used an illusion spell on himself and scooped the children away. He used a sleeping spell Harry had read about. Harry kept his eye on those adults in pain. He had a few thoughts about finishing things once the children were all clear, but knew he couldn't do it while the kids might be watching. Others would turn up soon enough. There was no time.

It was bad enough Harry had done this in front of witnesses. Against Quirrel in an empty hallway – or Rookwood on a rain-drenched night – that was one thing. But Harry wished he could finish this problem now, and knew he couldn't. Maybe the Ministry might even send some of its vaunted security... Maybe by dawn, the lazy sots.

Harry found he couldn't move, not until Sirius came back after settling the children into several cars and lorries. He also woke some stunned adults and 'encouraged' everyone to disappear down a road. There, they were safe for now.

Sirius put his hand on Harry's back and pushed him away from the scene. Neither spoke. But Harry knew he'd stop moving if Sirius stopped pushing. It was like his own body was only partially working just then.

Harry learned a few things about himself in that darkness, things that no fourteen-year-old should need to know. But instead of disgust, he felt a flicker of pride. He had stood his ground. He had helped those who could not help themselves. He had brought pain to those who had chosen to deal pain.

To stop those screams, he had sided against those causing them. He realized then that he always would. He always would. This was his form of magic. Protection, even violent defense of the innocent. It contented him...

Harry didn't sleep at all that night and Sirius wasn't much better.

They packed up in the morning at first light and were gone. Sirius asked no questions and Harry still said nothing. Maybe they would talk about it in the future – or maybe never, as if it had all been a horrible dream.

Harry never did feel any guilt over his choice that night, save that he let those men live. That part did prickle.

X-X-X

Back in his tent at the Black Mansion on one of the few days before Hogwarts resumed, Harry realized that, aside from his stupid, wonderful heroism at the World Cup stadium grounds, he had been hiding this summer in France. He had worked here, of course, he had learned things, but not as much as in summers past.

He had been avoiding what lay at Hogwarts, what warnings he had received.

He knew that Voldemort was plotting. Rookwood's very close attempt last year, and his remarks about what he was doing and why, was plenty of proof for that.

Harry had choices.

He could let Voldemort come while Harry wallowed, blind and unprepared. Or Harry could let Voldemort come and face an ambush of his own.

Harry might bear a ridiculous nickname, but he had secretly attacked and banished Voldemort in his first schhol year while poorly trained and after just being attacked, for a second time, with a Killing Curse. He had strength, but he had panicked every time he had been called upon to use it. He had never readied a plan to use it when necessary.

Now he knew what was coming, if not exactly when or in what form. He could plan. He could have some general approaches ready.

Harry had survived because others had suffered or died to shield him. He would not waste that.

He shook his head and left. He was late for his second-to-last-day of work.

He reassessed. He had let some things slip, but it wasn't a squandered summer by any means. Harry had, without realizing it, reaffirmed his interest in putting up his own home even after seeing the complexity of one that was being dismantled. He wanted to restore his family, though if he was going to stash secrets inside his home, well, he was going to warn people about them rather than leaving a revenant laying about.

Because Harry might be healed physically, but he was only now able to start the other, murkier processes of healing. The emotions, the fear, all of the items he had thought he'd pulled together. Healing a mind wasn't at all like healing a broken hand. It was harder and it didn't have a moment where 'all the bones are mended, congratulations, you are well.' Wish that were so.

"You awake?" Harry called out when he got to Old Spencer's tent.

"For hours. Get in here. I've been looking at these notes you left me. Your teacher was crazy to let you try something like what you did."

"Crazy?"

"Your original diagram could just have easily imprisoned a ghost – not chased it away – as ripped the soul out of a living person and imprisoned it. Total luck of the draw which would happen."

As sickening as Harry had been over his role in discovering Regulus Black, what Old Spencer had said was many, many times worse. "What..."

"This array you sketched out could be useful against spirits – or it could function as a runic version of the Killing Curse..."

"But..."

"Your definition of spirit is so encompassing, it might just include living souls, Potter."

Harry had accidentally created a weapon of mass destruction.

"No one can know," Spencer said. "Especially not the teacher. She didn't keep your notes?"

"No. But she'd have the memory of them. She could review the memory. I don't have a pensieve, but I know they exist."

Spencer nodded. "Your teacher is sort of family to me."

"You hadn't mentioned that."

"Her grandmother is married to my former brother-in-law, my late sister's husband. It's not a close connection, but I can get her to visit me for a lunch or something."

"Memory charm?"

"Or something," Spencer said. "We are in the same field, sort of, and I am notorious and rather sought after."

"And your head has expanded three times since I first showed you that thing."

"Your accidents, Potter, are better than anything I've ever set out to do."

Damn.

"Just be a sight more careful, understand?"

"I will."

"We'll need to rework this. You should have an anti-spirit medallion that works."

Harry nodded.

"A few people knew you had one. This will keep folks from asking where it went."

And it would keep Peeves and Dumbledore at bay.

"We also need to get you some better references. Hogwarts used to have a good collection for rune works, but maybe they haven't kept it up?"

Harry shrugged. He didn't know what a good collection might look like. But his other experiences with the library reminded him that it was run on almost no budget at all. Donated or other free books made it to the shelves.

"It really could have...," Harry asked.

Harry had gone well past feeling stupid. He had been so eager to get away from Dumbledore's ghost and from Peeves...and he had designed something that, theoretically, could have killed everyone he came across.

He felt anger toward himself – and toward the books he'd consulted – and toward his teacher. He felt...

"Potter, it didn't happen. Nothing happened. Your teacher knew enough to keep you safe. That's why learners don't charge anything up, ever. Self-taught rune students, a few a year, wind up dead. You need a mentor for all of this. You have a teacher..."

"But..."

"I didn't tell you what I told you so you'd start drinking. I told you so you'd take some care. We do need to get you some better resources." He listed off three books. Harry had looked at two of them.

"They're outdated, wrong. The library shouldn't carry them in the runes section. Maybe in history of plagiarists and bumblers."

"Show me," Harry said. "Show me what I did wrong."

"Take a seat."

Spencer pulled up a volume and showed Harry how three of the runes in his array could mean one thing, or another thing, but when they were together they meant something a little bit different.

It was past noon when Spencer pulled out some sketchings in his own sloppy hand. "This is how I modified what you did. Now, your penance is this. Take these four books, go back to your tent, and tell me exactly what my design will do. If you don't know, make a note so we can talk it over. Write down your references. These four books are good, but they disagree in places which is why I still carry all four of them around. Pay attention to the orientation of each rune. Why are some standard, why is one inverted, all that."

"So you want me to come back tonight."

Spencer laughed. "Let's say tomorrow morning, before breakfast. I think figuring out what I've sketched out will take you some time. Don't forget to eat, Potter. Questions?"

"No, sir."

"I hate the word 'sir.' I'm Spencer. I'll include this in my next letter to Madam Spurl..."

"Do you have to?" Harry asked.

"It'll impress her. I was way older than twenty before I did something that almost killed myself, the first time. You've got ambition, Potter. We all like it. Now you just need to know what you don't know. Off you get."

Harry let Spencer distract him with work, this 'penance.'

He needed to learn to be careful. He'd need to know about runes when it came time to rebuild his family's home. So he wouldn't just walk away from the field. He needed to know.

He ate and kept the four books and Spencer's 'fixed' array closed. He needed to think a bit.

But he would also figure out exactly what he had done wrong. If the books available to him were so bad... Yes, Harry felt himself relax. He would let his schooling catch up to what he wanted. He'd pick a simple public project. He'd hold off of any of the Potter wards.

He had Voldemort to worry about this year. He knew what his life would be. He knew at least some of the problems would be. Harry had to begin cutting back his ignorance – and trimming down his enemies. This Triwizard Tournament that the Flamels had warned him about... Not killing everyone with an innocent rune mistake... Keeping up with the spellwork he'd been working on...

A reward? Perhaps he could find more people worth the time of knowing. Harry didn't have a family of the blood. He would have to grow one from the heart.

Hermione, Sirius, Ron, Remus Lupin, Neville, the twins...they were all nice, but Harry found he wanted a larger family. He didn't know if he dare talk to Susan Bones again much this year, lest he wind up triggering some Hufflepuff compact that left them married to each other. But more people...

He needed a plan because life wasn't going to make it easy for him to accomplish anything – unless he had a direction and the will to get there. It wasn't enough to have skills, which Harry did. He needed a greater plan, one that would help to drag him through the promised, upcoming shitstorm.

This was the most important thing. He knew a bit of his own future through Voldemort's clumsiness and also the kindness of his mentors. He had that advantage and he could not, would not, squander it.

He had had a mess of a summer. Part fun, part disaster, part warning, part healing. But the real world hadn't stopped turning in that time. That was the reality. There was no shame in hiding from pain – but there was no honor in it, either. He'd be lying if he pretended otherwise and Harry wasn't much for self-delusion.

X-X-X

Harry thought one night in number twelve Grimmauld Place was enough for the rest of his life. As Harry and Sirius made their way to King's Cross, Harry made his case. "You need to arrange to sell it..."

"Or burn it down."

"Or something."

"Well, I will say this. The team who was dismantling that monstrosity in France will shortly be in London. Perhaps on Grimmauld Place."

Harry felt the relief. "Good. Will Mr. Castar be returning?"

Sirius shrugged. He wasn't healing all that well, it seemed.

Not to self, don't get attacked by a revenant. "I hope that they don't anything as bad as what..."

"Yes," Sirius said. Neither of them said a forbidden word, like 'revenant' or 'Regulus.'

Harry got onto the Express early. Sirius accompanied him and sat in the compartment for a while and told stories of Harry's father and mother where they had once walked and fought and fallen in love. Sirius left about ten minutes before the Express was due to depart. Harry and Sirius both had full smiles on their faces.

There was so much they couldn't say, but the smiles and the happiness they exchanged were enough for now.

Hermione arrived about two minutes after Sirius left. "I watched you and him talking."

"He's not at all what people think," Harry said.

"I could see that. He made you smile in a way I don't often see."

Harry suddenly felt shy about someone else seeing him with his godfather. "You need some help with your trunk?" Harry asked.

"Please."

Hermione allowed him to switch the subject.

It was resting in the hall and it was heavy, probably crammed with forty books and two robes. That girl. Harry dared to use his very fine levitation spell. His wand was French and this place was filled with adults. Did underage spell work even register here?

When Harry got the trunk settled, Hermione was back to looking nervous. This look stretched for a minute, then two. She looked fairly ridiculous.

"Spit it out," Harry said.

"What?"

"Whatever you need to say but can't."

Hermione went through about three shades of pale white and one of pink before she opened her mouth. "I got a number of lecturers lined up..."

"Good." Harry wondered which ones he would like. Hermione had done a remarkable job so far lining up speakers. "Who did you find?"

"Let's keep that a secret for now."

"Okay."

"But I left one off my wish list."

Harry looked confused. "Who?"

She stared at him a moment. "Harry, would you give a talk?"

He was on her wish list?

"What? Why?" he asked.

He was a fourth year student. All right, he was famous for unfathomable reasons and not a bad student in the areas that intrigued him, but he didn't even have his OWLs.

Harry shook his head. "I think the fame lecture that Madam Warbeck already did was useful..."

"You're not just famous," Hermione said.

"What would you like me to talk about for an hour?"

"Not about fame. Not about your family – or You Know Who. Any topic you like and feel comfortable with."

This was why she hadn't just written him a letter. Instead, she was staring at him while no one knocked on the compartment door. Had she bespelled it? Probably. They normally had a crowd.

Harry supposed he would have to say yes, but he could get a few concessions. If he did it right, he might be able to pick something he actually needed to brush up on. It was going to be a rough year.

Once he accepted he would say yes, his first thought was to pass along the Traveler's Best Friends by way of doing a lesson on defense. Of course, Trimble must have been a traveler in his youth, to focus so much on deadly spells. Harry had trouble imagining what would happen if a quarter of Hogwarts knew Fulmenifer and had it trained up. And Fulmenifer was now something of an official mystery after what had happened after the World Cup Final, all those men in masks who limped and shivered and covered their burns, at least according to a few oblique reference in the _Prophet_.

Harry couldn't just teach Trimble's three main spells. In fact, he didn't need to copy good advice. He could take the spirit of that advice and pass it along...

What were three fine spells for the modern traveler? Harry had hit plateaus with his spell development and was looking for a little variety. He couldn't claim to have mastered the fire, water, or lightning spell – but he also thought there was no one alive who had put so much effort into those three specific variations. Or his diviso. He was still basically pants with the Patronus.

Harry would keep up, and try to advance, what he had. But it was a useful exercise to pick another three that he intended to teach to his classmates and whoever they told about the class he would give. What should they know? What would Harry like to know when he had Voldemort threatening to return this year?

"Just one promise?" Harry asked.

Hermione had been expecting anything but his agreement, it seemed. Now she looked at him warily. "Yes?"

"Bill it as 'How to Adventure and Travel the World,' credit it only to a special guest."

"You won't let me put your name on the poster?" Hermione asked, almost offended at someone being clever and devious.

"Just the lecture title."

Hermione relented and smiled a little. "May I ask why?"

"I only want people to attend if they're interested in the subject. The Quidditch lectures are big hits in part because of the famous folks giving the talks. Also, once the talk starts, no latecomers admitted. I'll just sit in the audience until it's time. Everyone knows I come to all of them."

"Because of me."

Harry shrugged. "I don't think I'd have watched the Fat Lady dress down Professor McGonagall if it weren't for our friendship. I don't regret any hour you've scheduled, although if you do something like Lavender Brown suggested late last year, 'the secrets of applying makeup,' I may have to rethink our friendship..."

"Oh, Harry. I was so nervous about asking you."

He waited for her to continue explaining herself.

"But you've found books I've never even heard of."

That was his core curiosity at work.

"I looked for people who seem interested in the topics you are..."

That surprised him and pleased him. "You wanted to get a lecturer I'd like."

"Yes. Yes, that's why I've been looking for two years – I've been in used book stores and there are plenty of books. But none of the good books still have living writers."

Which said a lot about how dangerous it could be for a wizard to travel the world...

"Well, seeing as there are no living experts, I guess I'd be happy to step in as an interested amateur."

"Good," Hermione said.

"Maybe after this, we can get together a few folks who might be interested in actually seeing the world. A traveler's club? I know I've seen very little, a bit of Wales, a tiny sliver of France, but I've been getting ready..."

"Count me as your first member..." She blushed again.

Harry couldn't figure out why. She seemed to blush a fair amount.

"Well, maybe I'll mention it at the talk. As for scheduling in the year, I don't want to be first. I don't want to be last. Just somewhere in the middle."

"Okay."

He nodded. "Now you can take down the spells you put on the door."

"You felt me do it?" Hermione asked with some surprise.

"The compartment isn't filled with our friends. I assumed."

The blush returned. Hermione pulled her wand and, less than a minute later, the Weasleys stumbled in, looking like they'd all been personally hauling their belongings from Ottery St. Catchpole. It seemed Ginny would be joining them this year. And she had brought a friend along, another girl. She had long blonde hair and rather wide eyes.

"You're Harry Potter," the new arrival said.

Harry just nodded. After years of this, he still had little love for his fame.

"I'm Luna Lovegood."

Then she sat silently and read a magazine. Ron was loud today, mostly about the craziness of the World Cup which he'd listened to on the Wizarding Wireless.

Hadn't they been at the tournament final? Harry could have sworn Ron or the twins said they were going... Harry did not inquire further.

He also didn't mention his presence at the site, nor what happened in the chaos. He was still thinking about those crazy few minutes and how he could have done things better. He was still undecided by what he meant by better.

What should he have known in those moments? An illusion spell? A higher-level stunner? He needed to start getting ready for hell because it was on its way.

X-X-X

Harry felt sad when the Welcoming Feast commenced and it was Professor McGonagall who gave the start of term notices. Harry hadn't quite realized how much he would miss Headmaster Flamel. He had never spent much time with the man, just a few brief conversations, but he and his wife had done things to make the school better and to help Harry survive his place in this world.

Harry listened as Hermione got quizzed by several people, including more than one Hufflepuff at the next table, over who she had lined up for lecturers this year. How did Hufflepuff know – and why did they care? Were they starting up their own lecture series...

"Well, I had some requests for some previous lecturers to return, but I wanted to keep the group fresh." Hermione glanced at several faces, including Fred Weasley.

Had Fred wanted his dad back to speak? He could have just spoken with his father at home – or did his dad leave his political hints at the office.

The groaners complained about not seeing some of the Gryffindor quidditch players again. They were the ones who'd skipped out on the talk, suckers, even knowing the topic and the names of the scheduled guests. They hadn't wanted to be there, but they did react from everyone else in Gryffindor being there.

Hermione did let slip a few of the general topics, including a topic on money management and another on preparing to travel the world. She didn't even glance at Harry when she said it.

The ones that interested Harry right off were a Wizengamot member (who might be as gifted a speaker as Mr. Weasley) and a historian who would speak about things like the World Cup of Quidditch and other events. Less interesting, though not so awful for Harry to skip them, were a ghost who would visit from London, the retired editor of the Daily Prophet, and the largest wizard sheepherder in Wales.

Then Professor McGonagall explained to the student body about the Triwizard Tournament. Most people with sense were frustrated by what they heard. Three events over the course of a year – and it would disrupt plenty about the school. The Hogwarts champion would be selected by an impartial judge, which Hermione identified as traditionally being the Goblet of Fire.

No house points... No Quidditch tournament... They would have foreign guests at meals but not in their classes... This all sounded very strange to Harry.

And not a little dangerous.

All of this activity meant plenty of strangers around. Well, Harry might not have thought of that detail even if he had spent all summer locked in a room plotting against the Triwizard Tournament. He'd have been thinking of the events, not the spectators, which might have been a big error.

Well, he had almost two months before things kicked off. He knew a little already. He would find out more and in rapid order.

Starting with the Goblet of Fire. Harry was grateful again for Hermione's obsession when it came to knowledge and puzzle-solving.

X-X-X

Harry's first class of his fourth year at Hogwarts was with Professor Moody. The man looked like a steak that had been mauled and abandoned by hungry dogs, but he had seen the world and had it trample him. He was a survivor many times over. He looked no better than he had when he'd been a guest of Sirius' the prior winter holiday.

The man had apparently decided to treat all his fourth year students as applicants to the Auror Academy or something like it. That hour was a whirlwind: references to cursing and fighting techniques, laws Harry had never heard of, famous battles he expected them all to become familiar with.

Most of Harry's classmates left thinking Moody was insane. Harry, on the other hand, took note of when Moody held his office hours. He looked at his schedule and realized he could swing one of the times. He was going to make himself a pest for a while, see what was what.

Madam Spurl had been worth knowing after all. Moody might just be a broken down retiree. Or he might be someone of great value.

The next class was the one Harry was dreading: Potions. Snape had been almost pleasant when he had the threat of Professor Flamel auditing his class. McGonagall seemed either too permissive or fairly oblivious about her fellow faculty members when she was Deputy Headmistress. Now that she was in charge Harry expected no great changes.

From Snape, Harry was expecting more than two years of pent-up rage to be unleashed in one class period.

He wasn't far wrong.

Snape glided into the room with those trick robes he had probably patented, all that fluttering and swooping. Almost as dramatic as the man himself. "Cauldrons away. We are having a quiz to see if any of you remember anything at all about potions, which I doubt."

The 'quiz' seemed more daunting than the OWLs they would face at the end of their fifth year. Snape walked around, read answers over shoulders, scowled, and talked to himself. "And they say my family was cursed by vampires. At least they weren't sneaking into troll huts to find their pleasures, watering down their descendants to the point where no one knows what a jobberknowl is. Dunderheads!"

In the hallway after that mess, several students were repeating what Snape had said about vampires – while laughing. Then Snape walked into the hallway and handed down detentions and loss of points as if they were gifts and he was the Great House Elf of Yule-time.

Harry hadn't gotten tarred with any of that. He didn't have the time to laugh at Snape-doing-Snape.

This was going to be a bad year as Snape kicked it back into full nastiness after two years being sullen and proper. People with bad habits just never forgot them.

Well, it was strange and there was plenty of strangeness going around right now. This, at least, was Snape just being Snape.

X-X-X

Harry had a letter from breakfast still in his hand when he walked into the Ancient Runes classroom. The letter was a surprise. It was perfectly polite and contained his final cheque from his work at the Black Mansion in France. But it was signed by Guillaume Castar, who had been horribly wounded. Maybe his recovery had sped up?

Harry would send the check to Sirius and get him to deposit it at Gringotts. Why couldn't they have just paid him when he left...

Professor Babbling entered the classroom from her office. She was early and the room wasn't yet full. Had a lot of students dropped? Or were people running late?

"Professor?" Harry asked.

"Yes, Potter."

"The books on the Triwizard mention a Goblet of Fire used as an impartial judge," Harry said. He'd started checking on things yesterday after his last class. "Is that something we can get more information on, or study in class? I'm assuming it's a rune-enchanted object if it's old and still working."

"You know, that is a clever question. Maybe we'll look at it and a few other famous items in the next few weeks."

"You have its rune diagram?"

"Well, I have a few books that do."

Harry smiled. "Thank you."

"It's always a trick to keep those starting out interested in the field. It takes a good few years before you can manage much impressive. I had studied runes for nine years before I made my first pensieve, that's a..."

Harry just nodded. He had inherited at least two, according to his Potter relatives who had portraits.

"So nine years of work before you get to do a masterwork. It's a lot of patience. My teachers didn't much bother reminding us why we were sweating syntax for languages that were long dead. I'd rather do things better than that."

The room filled and Babbling went back to her notes, then she conducted a review. The class was still large. Harry thought they'd only lost one or two students from last year.

His fingers ran down the medallion he wore inside his shirt. While he hadn't done the engraving, he had done the initial work on the runes and the array and he had charged the thing himself. It was a masterwork. Old Spencer had said so and he many under his own name.

Harry's anti-spirit medallion was currently 'on.' It had an 'off' position, too. But it also had other modes, which is what really made it a masterwork. The thing was very powerful and more than a little dangerous.

X-X-X

Harry was rather distracted as he made his way into the Gryffindor family room. He decided to sit at the back and see if he could spend some time with his current project, the specifications that Professor Babbling had provided for the Goblet of Fire. Harry had used a nifty spell to create a sketched, rather than conjured, copy. Geminio was not so great if you needed to keep things for a longer than a few days.

But Harry had a problem. First the room just wasn't that full so Hermione would notice him staring at parchment. Then there was a girl wearing Ravenclaw colors sitting in the same row – and no one else seemed to notice at all.

"You're Ginny Weasley's friend?" Harry asked to get her talking.

"Or perhaps she is mine."

Harry shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't remember your name."

She looked surprised. Whether for Harry's forgetfulness or over his apology. "Luna."

"How did you find your way in here?"

"I asked nicely and walked inside..." She had this little smile on her face, as if she was speaking to a dim child.

"That's an accomplishment," Harry said, "given you're not a Gryffindor."

"We're all a little Gryffindor, aren't we? Rumor has it that you're more than a little Slytherin, too."

This was a girl who knew how to work a conversation.

Fine. Harry wasn't going to throw her out if no one else gave her a pass. "Did you come to any of these last year?"

"Didn't even hear about them until this summer. Blame Ginny. She can talk and talk."

Harry found that a surprise. Ron's sister said fairly little around Harry. Usually 'fans' couldn't stop talking when they stumbled across him.

"I don't think this one will be that well attended. Hermione wrote that a historian was speaking..."

"And people will think Binns."

Harry nodded.

Eventually a small woman came into the room, taller than Madam Spurl and younger seeming but in worse shape healthwise. She looked like someone who was counting life by the week, not the year.

Hermione introduced her as the woman who'd written their History of Magic textbook and almost got herself booed.

The woman just smiled like nothing odd was happening. Then she began to speak. "I had Cuthbert as my teacher, too. I became a historian not because of him, but in spite of him."

Applause drowned her out.

"The book was my attempt to give every student at Hogwarts at least a basic understanding of our world. Read that with care and you can get an Exceeds Expectations on your OWLs."

That had Hermione looking like she'd robbed a bank.

"But today I wanted to delve into the history of the Triwizard Tournament, which the history text I wrote doesn't touch on. As for the Tournament itself, there are a number of myths and not a lot of facts that survive. Most of what you will hear is guess work. Here is some of what we know: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang have been the three schools involved fewer than twenty times. There were other schools involved. Of the recorded contests, forty percent of the contestants have sustained mortal wounds during the tournament..."

And Harry nodded. He finally understood why Hermione had settled on this speaker for the first slot of the year.

Hermione hated the Triwizard Tournament and this was her effort to derail it. It wouldn't be canceled, but she might keep Gryffindors from attempting to compete. She might start some gossip and keep any decent candidates from Hogwarts from joining up. She might just manage to make it a laughing stock.

Clever girl.

"...Dumbledore said he was trying to get this tournament restarted some years ago. I about yelled his ears off his head. Brilliant man, but stubborn as a stone. Take those qualities together and you've got yourself a rather dim person, in my experience."

Harry shook his head and kept to himself his thoughts about the ghost he knew. Persistent, but rather distracted as Binns seemed to be. No longer quite connected to the land of the living.

"Well, Gellert and Albus..."

"Gellert? As in Gellert Grindelwald, the Dark Lord?" Hermione asked.

The historian's face seized up at that, confirming the identity. "Perhaps that story isn't quite acceptable for this gathering, right?"

Harry would like to hear whatever she had been about to say. The others in the room were looking uncharitably at Hermione just now, too.

Miss Bagshot continued on her comments about the Triwizard. If Harry hadn't been warned before about this Triwizard Tournament, he would be wary now.

This was something where it might be safe to be a spectator, as only a _few hundred_ had died in its recorded history, but forty percent of the contestants had died. There had been sirens and sphinxes, dragons of every color and stripe, sea monsters including some specifically bred for the competition, a cockatrice most infamously... Manticores and all other sorts of horrible beasties.

There had been illegal duels held at the Yule Balls that accompanied the tournament. There had been bribery and beheadings. There were still complete mysteries over how more than a handful of competitors had died: perhaps untraceable poisons, perhaps subtle curses, perhaps plain old fear.

As nauseating as it all sounded, Harry found himself with an odd sensation in his heart. He should have felt fear because this obvious disaster was about to roll into Hogwarts like thunderclouds bearing lightning strikes.

Instead, he felt calmness. He knew about the problem. He was working to handle the problem. He had a copy of the schematic used to make the Goblet of Fire. He would be ready to keep some or all of the trouble away from himself.

This might be cockiness speaking, but he felt good.

He felt prepared.

He felt relieved.

He knew where the enemy was focusing. He knew their goal: it was the same as the prior year, Harry had decided, to gain Harry or some of Harry's bodily tissues. To resurrect Voldemort into a new body. Rookwood, for all the damage he had done, had given away the plot – then the Flamels had confirmed it from their own sources.

Harry looked at Luna again and noticed her odd clothing. It appeared she was wearing radishes, real ones, in her ears. They might or might not have a rune carved in them, Harry wasn't quite sure if he was seeing a rune or some attempt to coax dirt off the surface of a thin skin.

He shook his head.

For now, he needed to focus on the Triwizard and its mysteries. There was no room for complacency, but there was also no need for unbridled terror this year. Harry didn't know how he was going to do it yet, but he was going to bring the terror to Voldemort and his collection of lackeys. He vowed it to himself.

"Well, I wish she would say more about the late headmaster, that was new. All the rest of this was available in a few books," Luna said.

Trust a Ravenclaw to pre-read for a optional, secret lecture.

When the questions began they ran the full gamut from Dumbledore to Grindelwald. Miss Bagshot turned multiple shades of red and answered the questions with more than a little Dumbledorian hedging.

But it turned out that their late headmaster had been in love, in his youth, with a future dark lord. It was both interesting for a man who would gain a reputation of lightness – and more than a little shocking. Harry, famed already for fighting the dark, was not going to take this as an example for his own behavior. Harry was not going to dabble in his own love affair with the dark. No way.

"So was it worth sneaking in?" Harry asked Luna.

"It was better than listening to a bunch of girls groan over how mean Snape is or how hard the next Arithmancy test will be. So, yes."

Whiners, eh? "It sounds like Ravenclaw isn't all that different from Gryffindor."

"I'd be shocked if you aren't nicer people. There must be something wrong with someone who wants to be a Ravenclaw at the age of eleven. A petty person..."

She no longer sounded quite so dreamy. There was a sharp, cutting mind inside her gentle-looking head.

"I'm sorry."

He was.

He hadn't fully dealt with his own years living as the abnormal one among people clinging to being ordinary. He could imagine what it was like to live among teenaged pettiness... He knew what the adult flavor was like, after all.

"It's a good year so far, for me at least. The Triwizard has given folks something else to wonder about..."

"No one can help?" Harry asked, without probing into exactly what the 'mean girls' of Ravenclaw would normally be doing.

"Have you ever had luck asking any of these professors for help?"

"Maybe Professor Flitwick."

"He's nice, a good instructor, but not much of a head of house."

"Oh." Harry didn't expect to hear that.

"He really does think the best of everyone, especially those who don't deserve his trust."

So not bad as a Head of House from neglect. Bad because of excessive optimism?

"You need someone sneaky in that role to keep up with the sneaks," Luna said.

Wasn't that the truth? Harry almost laughed.

Harry looked up and discovered that he and Luna were the last two people in the room. "Good lecture, huh?"

Luna did laugh.

She was a pretty interesting person. Maybe a friend? Well, Harry had a few other things to focus on this year, but he might see.

X-X-X

Harry snuck away after his last class of the day. He felt the need to practice his spellwork...or, rather, he felt so twitchy he could barely concentrate.

For all the times he told himself he would be ready, he really didn't feel it.

Even Ron had mocked him and Ron didn't often mock other people for obviously lazy behavior. That Ron usually approved of. But Harry seemed more twitchy and less lazy or something.

Harry worked on his spells in his little area on the fifth floor. Then he remembered he had another task he could complete. He reached for his anti-spirit medallion. Harry turned it off.

Not so long after, Harry had a ghostly visitor. "Ah, Harry, how are you today?" Dumbledore asked.

"Professor."

Harry stood and waited for the topic-of-the-day. Perhaps the late Headmaster would comment on a particularly fine squirrel on the grounds or note that the castle stones had never looked so clean? He had certainly been one for surprising remarks when he'd been human and addressing the students in the Great Hall. His ability to dissemble and distract as a ghost was far less than what Harry had seen of him as a human.

"And how are you enjoying classes? Divination?"

He was still harping on about that. Harry hadn't known the man well in life. In fact, Harry knew more about him from what Headmaster Flamel had said, also Miss Bagshot. Dumbledore seemed far less guarded as a spirit, far less able to hide his intentions. If it weren't so irritating, it would be amusing how obvious he was.

Harry let the ghost ramble for a little while.

He wanted the ghost to settle in before he ran his test.

For, in addition to on and off, Old Spencer had carved Harry's new medallion with several other options, including one that was very similar to his own original rune configuration. Harry had allowed Dumbledore to hunt him down so he could see just what the effect was on a spirit, for it did nothing to humans.

"Professor, I wonder if you know anything about the Triwizard Tournament?" Harry asked.

"Is it that time already? Years and years have I spent lobbying for its return and I'm glad it's still going forward..."

So Dumbledore had hinted the year before. Harry wished the man hadn't resurrected an old and deadly game. Maybe he could have spent some time putting a final end to Voldemort? His brain must have been rotten before he transitioned into a ghost.

"Oh, you liked it that much?" Harry asked.

"It's important to do things for friends, our friends in Europe. I insisted they come here, to us."

It all sounded like another game that the wizard had spun up.

"I did have to call in many old favors, grudgingly paid up. How has the tournament been? Is it worth what I remember spending on it?"

Not so far, Harry thought but didn't say. No, he needed to derail whatever the professor would like to say. "Bathilda Bagshot was in recently to speak..."

The ghost flushed, then paled, both of which Harry was surprised to see were possible.

Dumbledore turned and called out, "Ah, I must be leaving, Harry. It was good to speak with you again. Be sure to learn well in Divination..."

Harry never had and never would study the field. Worthless.

Harry realized he was out of time. He touched his anti-spirit medallion to try one of its other modes, the one very similar to what Harry first presented to his Ancient Runes teacher. The fleeing Dumbledore suddenly stopped moving. He hung in the air.

It wouldn't have been a good repellent, but it served as a kind of immobilizer instead, which was useful in its own right, wasn't it?

Harry said a few things to Dumbledore. He got no verbal response. He got no flinching. It was like Dumbledore was a bit of airy stone rippling in the room. It didn't react or shift or wiggle. It didn't lie or attempt to mislead. It didn't succeed in fleeing.

Harry undid the configuration and Dumbledore continued fleeing without even a comment. Had it stoppered his memories, kept him from forming new ones during his immobilization?

Useful that.

Harry would have to see if it had any effect on Peeves, but later. He switched his anti-spirit medallion back to its standard 'on' position.

Harry finished up his practice with diviso, repaired the damage he had done, and went to Gryffindor Tower to leave his bag in his room. His mind now had a temporary distraction, at least until the start of the Triwizard drew closer. Then he'd be just as twitchy as before, he feared.

X-X-X

The students of Hogwarts were waiting for the visitors to arrive. They were lined up in orderly fashion, but the conversations were anything but orderly. The Slytherin students, in the public eye, were silent and stony. The other three houses were gossiping about the Slytherin Head of House, who had once again engineered an explosion inside his own potions lab, this time blaming several of his seventh year students.

Harry had been relatively shielded from Snape's behavior this year, in comparison to how the man had treated him as a first year. Had his mind finally gone? Had he ingested the wrong combination of fumes and melted away his own mind? Harry suspected there was actually a way to achieve that effect.

Snape was creepy as could be. In the potions lab, he was always sniffing cauldrons, then sipping from some of the ones he'd set up at the front of the classroom as examples of how they should actually be brewing their potions. The sixth and seventh years appeared to be doing devilishly complicated brews which required frequent observation and tasting...gross.

Outside, while they were all stuck waiting, Hermione was handing out warming charms like they were gifts – and she was making some temporary friends among the Gryffindor younger years. Who decided they needed to be out here a good thirty or forty minutes before their visitors showed up? Were Hogwarts students that much more impressive if their noses were red and snotty and their hair was faintly glazed with ice?

Yes, Harry was not in a good mood right now.

He had been puzzling over the several runic drawings he had concerning the Goblet of Fire – and they didn't make sense. The versions from different sources, as Harry had acquired several books from used bookstores, didn't agree at all. Wizards really didn't have common sense... Not one of the books noted that there were at least five different runic arrays all proposed for the Goblet of Fire. Which one was real?

As if that wasn't tricky enough, when Harry sat down and tried to see what the runes on any one version did, he just couldn't make heads or tails of it. It was like it was fifty percent right and fifty percent rubbish. Something stank.

"You all right, Harry?" Neville asked.

"I'm just thinking."

"This looming disaster," as more than one person had labeled the Triwizard, "doesn't affect us, save for the cold right now."

Harry shrugged. Neville might take it as agreement. Harry knew he was involved – and he was trying to preempt whatever might be coming.

"You're really into Ancient Runes this year," Neville said, not for the first time. He was far less subtle this time.

Harry was into self-preservation. Whatever he could learn and prepare for concerning the Goblet of Fire might just keep his neck in one happy piece.

"I'm enjoying Runes, yes."

"They say they'll put the Goblet of Fire on display for the first time in two hundred years."

Harry nodded. Many people were talking about the Goblet. Harry had gotten most of the conversations about the Goblet started. He had been mining for information since the second of September or there-abouts.

"I hardly see you with anything other than a runes book."

"Moody's good but the work... Let's just say that I'm ahead on curses." And Harry actually was, pretty far ahead with his limited, but well practiced, repertoire. Plus the new spells he was learning, some of which might be appropriate for the lecture he'd said he'd give. "Charms and Transfiguration are interesting, but not too bad so far."

He left his thoughts about Potions and History and Astronomy unsaid. Of course, the attempt to introduce 'Wizarding Studies' the year before had not been repeated this year, not so far.

"The new Transfiguration professor is very good," Neville said.

By which he, and everyone else, meant young and pretty.

Her name was Professor Blysse-Hampton and she was Australian.

She had a list of admirers about as long as the list of boys and men at Hogwarts. However, she was far less strict than Professor McGonagall and her standards as a teacher were a good deal more relaxed.

They hadn't yet progressed much beyond what they'd done the year before – and they were nearly two months into the term.

One, however, didn't complain about Professor Blysse-Hampton if one wished to remain on friendly terms with one's housemates. Period. So Harry just nodded, even though he enjoyed looking at the new Transfiguration professor far more than he enjoyed learning from her.

"You don't look very good," Neville said.

"I guess I haven't been sleeping much, or well." He was a bit obsessed, come to think about it. His life was on the line... Okay, he was a bit unhinged, really.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Thanks for saying something. Hermione was a bit less gentle last week." And Ron a few weeks before that. The twins... Several people had said something, most of them none too gently.

Neville grinned for a moment.

"I don't know if it'll be better after all this starts – or if it'll get worse...," Harry said. He had a sense of where the future would lead but that was all.

"Let me know."

Neville didn't insist on helping. He offered, then left it to Harry. It was calm. It was nice.

Harry really felt the core message sink in: people were noticing the strain. Not that Neville meant to imply that, but that is how Harry decided to take notice of it.

Something had to change. Harry wouldn't need Voldemort to kill him if he let himself fall apart like this, his body would just collapse by the first of December on its own.

How would Harry find some normalcy?

He didn't get long to consider the topic. The other schools began their little attempts at drama then. The Beauxbatons flying horses were impressive. The flying coach was less so. Also, snooty girls in blue robes turned out not to be to Harry's taste.

The Durmstrang ship was actually worth waiting to see. The kids who piled off it looked like they should be mugging kids trying to eat their Big Macs, a bunch of thugs. Also not the kind of scowling folks Harry could see himself becoming friends with, even if several were famous Quidditch players. Krum had just flown in the World Cup final and there a kid on the German national team present in their group.

So that introduction was decidedly mixed. Cool horses and ship. The people they were transporting... Meh.

The feast was confused. The French food wound up on the Gryffindor table and the Gryffies were complaining about the lack of roasted potatoes which the Frenchies were looking at with both some hunger and not a little horror. There was an impromptu exchange and tensions abated.

The Headmistress finally rose and conducted the official introductions. Madame Maxime from France was larger than Hagrid but as tightly bound as McGonagall. She was an interesting one. Karkaroff from Dumstrang was just as big a thug as his students. Ludo Bagman seemed to have had all his thoughts beaten out of his skull at some point. Then there was an ancient figure called Mister Tofty who was the new Head of International Magical Cooperation. Hermione noted that the old one had clashed with Minister Nott and been forced out. Crouch or something, a name Harry knew in passing from speaking with his godfather Sirius.

The old man named Tofty was the master of ceremonies. He had a box levitated into a room and made a show of casting an age line around it before he levitated the crate away and left behind an oversized, rather crudely carved goblet made from a sooty-colored wood.

"This is the Goblet of Fire, which will select the champions for the Triwizard Tournament," the old wizard said, as if it were a surprise. Of course Harry had known this for some time.

Maybe he wasn't getting the reaction, the ooohs, he expected. An old piece of wood that hadn't been involved in any scandals in centuries wasn't very interesting or very magical looking, after all.

So he tapped the goblet with his wand and it burst into blue flames – and that got the attention of the room even when he was trying to explain the rest of the tournament.

Harry stared at those blue flames, hypnotic yes. But could there be a bigger warning about impending danger than something like that?

This object was powerfully magical, that was what all the books agreed on, along with its advanced age. It was made with runes that were poorly understood, if at all. The drawings between the books continued to clash. Harry still didn't understand what the goblet had been enchanted to do.

Harry chatted with half his mind as his housemates dissected the food or commented on the guests. There was plenty of gushing from some quarters – ahem, Ron – about certain Quidditch stars.

The other half of his mind remained on the goblet itself.

Harry remained at table picking at his food after his friends left.

When he was nearly alone in the Great Hall, he ventured close to the age line that the old Mr. Tofty had crafted.

Harry walked fully around the goblet, noting what runes were visible. He fished out some parchment and a stub of a pencil from his pocket. Worse than Hermione he was getting.

He started making notes and frowning. He did the circuit again and again, filling in more of what he discovered. Then he decided he needed to talk to Professor Babbling in the morning first thing. There was something not right at all with the Goblet. He hoped she could tell him he was wrong. But he had spent two months considering the Goblet of Fire and its five different drawings.

Harry wasn't wrong. There was a mess hiding behind that age line.

X-X-X


	5. Year Four: Tickling The Dragons

X-X-X

 **Year Four: Tickling the Dragons of Hogwarts**

X-X-X

Harry slept little that night and was early to breakfast the next morning. He caught Professor Babbling before she made it to the Head Table. He said enough to get her interest and they both walked to the Goblet of Fire. She, of course, could pass through the age line. She examined the parchments Harry had handed her, then she examined the Goblet itself. She spent more than twenty minutes comparing and contrasting.

"I see why you were concerned, Potter."

"So what is it?" Harry asked.

Professor Babbling held a finger out to one part of the Goblet. "This looks close to a Persian rune for eloquence, but it isn't."

Then she pointed elsewhere.

Harry squinted.

"This looks like it's out of one of the Chinese symbologies, but it isn't. Aside from seven real runes, the rest is gibberish."

"So what is it meant to do?"

"Select one name from each of four schools. Oh, and show off some impressive flames."

"Four schools? Which is the fourth?"

"No idea," the professor said. "But that's what was carved there."

"Seven runes. It's supposed to be binding and powerful..."

"I suppose there could be more runes carved inside, but I'm not levitating myself above it while it's lit."

"So..."

"It doesn't resemble any of these other schema, not at all. And why are there five different schema attributed to it anyway? This isn't the first fraud I've come across, but it is the first one vouched for by a Ministry. This will be a long day."

"But the drawing can't go forward," Harry said.

"We shall see."

Professor Babbling left the area inside the Age Line and went to the Headmistress, who had been waiting for her.

Harry overheard the start of the conversation. "Whatever that Goblet is, Minerva, it isn't the Goblet of Fire..."

"What?"

"It's a bloody forgery."

The rest of their chat was behind some kind of silencing spell.

For the first time in weeks, Harry felt the tension leave his body. All the warnings he'd been given had prompted him to actually look at the Goblet, which should have been an enchanter's masterwork. With just seven runes and much gibberish, it was actually less sophisticated than what Harry had done in Runes as a third-year student.

That didn't mean all the tension left him. He still wanted to avoid getting swept up into all this mess. So he'd watch and see what was likely to happen. If the adults didn't want to fix things, well, Harry would.

He sat at the Gryffindor table and inhaled about three plates of breakfast. He was truly hungry this morning. His mind was whirling with plans, as well. He couldn't enter the Age Line, but he might have to do something to end whatever threat that Goblet represented. How could he do it?

If the drawing wasn't called off, he had until the evening feast to figure out a plan. He wasn't getting caught up in this. Last year, he'd been relaxed up until the point when Rookwood's scheme cost Harry a finger. This year, he was going to do everything he could to remain safe and keep his friends that way, too.

X-X-X

Harry stuck close to the Great Hall for most of the day as Ministry figures descended on Hogwarts. The ashen faces they wore after being inside the Great Hall told the story. No one disputed that the 'Goblet of Fire' was a fake.

Harry listened to the gossipy Ministry experts and discarded a few of their theories. The one that made the most sense to him was this: the Goblet of Fire had existed, and may still. But it had been stolen from the Ministry long ago, though the Ministry and its predecessors refused to admit it. So they'd passed off various fakes over the centuries in order to avoid admitting an embarrassing truth. Now a truly awful fake pinged even a fourth year student's lie detector.

The problem with the Ministry, or the problem on this day, was that, while all the experts agreed that the Goblet of Fire wasn't the real Goblet, none of them possessed the power to admit it. Any admission like that might end up canceling the Triwizard Tournament.

All these rune experts could see the truth, but they were all bloody great cowards. The Ministry abhorred a scandal, but seemed unable to mount a fix. It would bungle any cover up it attempted and it looked like it was gearing up for one.

This Goblet was a clear forgery, with no mythical powers to create or enforce a magical contract, but where was the original one, Harry wondered.

Had it been stolen? Had someone broken it, but refused to admit it...

Broken it.

Harry felt the tension in his body release again. A wooden Goblet with no great runes on it could very easily break.

Still Harry hung around to watch and listen and see if any bravery might emerge out of this pit of cowardice. Professor Babbling was still giving her explanation. Professor McGonagall was talking with Ministry types. The other two Headmasters were present, but fuming in anger. Perhaps one or both of them was willing to declare the Ministry in breech. Harry hoped so.

Minister Nott oozed into the school shortly before the dinner hour and the drawing of the Champions. He looked more like a slug in a green robe than a human. He was massive and sweating even in late October weather. Not one of the people who worked for him chose to sidle up to him. He had to point and summon them. Each of the people he spoke to skittered away as soon as Nott looked away. He really was treated as cursed.

Ten minutes after arriving, he laid down the law on the experts who worked for his Ministry. "I don't care what the consensus is, we will certainly not be admitting anything. The Triwizard Tournament will continue as agreed, by contract."

Harry wondered if the defaulting party owed a considerable penalty that the Minister refused to pay.

Well, it had gone the way that Harry expected. The cowards were cowed by the chief coward.

"Who brought the Goblet to Hogwarts?" Minister Nott asked.

Ah, the blame game. Harry was familiar with this, as it was a constant of life in Little Whinging and the Dursley home, in particular.

The Auror who'd brought it to Hogwarts, Yaxley, was regarded as a 'good chap,' and his culpability discarded. Harry supposed that meant the man was almost as troubling as Minister Nott himself.

Nott promised a full investigation and also to attend the first task in person, then he left and drug all the Ministry 'experts' with him.

Professor Babbling caught Harry's eye and shook her head. She didn't seem all that surprised, more frustrated.

Harry went to Gryffindor Tower and was seen in the common room reading a book. Then he used a Notice-Me-Not charm to leave. In the corridor he donned his invisibility cloak and headed back to the Great Hall.

Harry pulled his wand and changed the color on a gold-colored charger laid out for the feast. He made the charger much harder to see, then he levitated the charger and aimed it at the 'Goblet of Fire.'

He used quite a bit of his anger to change the levitation to a banisher. The charger hit with enough force to dent stone, let alone damage a bit of hollowed-out wood.

The Goblet flew from its pedestal and hit the stone floor, giving one great crack when it hit. The infamous and mysterious 'Goblet of Fire' was now split into two pieces. There were dozens of bits of paper scattered on the stone floor.

The names of those who had entered last night, Harry supposed.

"No one go near it. We'll get the Ministry back here and they can witness how strong their Goblet was," Professor McGonagall said. She had been conferring with the Headmistress from Beauxbatons.

Harry returned the charger to the table and restored its false gold color. Then he walked slowly out of the Great Hall and returned to his seat in the Common Room, as if he'd never left.

Harry was safe now from the Goblet-of-Fire-that-Wasn't.

X-X-X

Harry went to his fifth floor room and made a mirror call to Sirius to update him on the Triwizard situation. Harry wanted to make sure he hadn't forgotten something obvious in what he'd done.

"It just shattered?" Sirius asked for a third time.

"Into two pieces."

"Ridiculous. You did a good job, Harry. I doubt you'll even be under suspicion. If they squawk at all, they'll look like fools. No enchanted item should crack from a fall, not if it was done right. A legendary item like the Goblet shouldn't break at all, from anything."

"How do you know?"

"The Blacks collected enchanted items. My grandfather had a pensieve..." Sirius paused.

"I've read about them," Harry said.

"He fired a Killing Curse at it and it did nothing to the thing. It was that strong, but not even close to a famous item or an ancient one. Just well made."

"It looks like whoever did this had about one or two years of Runes, not more than that. Or self-taught. It was poorly done, according to my professor and about eight unhappy Runes experts from the Ministry."

"Now this doesn't mean you're safe. The school is flooded with Ministry fools and foreigners."

"There's your xenophobia showing, Padfoot."

Sirius laughed. "Suppose so. Never liked the French. I like their Rue Magique just fine, and more than a few of their ladies, but... I'd have kept Black Manor in France if I liked the French, but you'll notice that I didn't."

"I was there."

"So I'll leave the topic there before I get myself into trouble."

"I'll try to stay on top of things," Harry said.

"Without drawing attention to yourself."

"I'll be as inconspicuous as a famous guy can be."

"Do that," Sirius said. "Don't be late for the feast."

"Good night."

Harry went straight down to the feast, but he paused before he entered the Great Hall. There was an argument in progress that seemed interesting. Harry tucked himself into a nook close enough to hear the raised voices.

Minister Nott was the loudest. "If you attempt to hold us to that contract for the Goblet and deny us our judge and our recognition, then we will not supply the dragons for the first task."

Professor McGonagall smiled. "I am pleased to hear it. I was not comfortable having such creatures that close to children. But my late friend Albus negotiated that part into the contract before his passing and no one could manage to negotiate it out."

Minister Nott turned the same shade of green as the robes he wore. He asked several of the people with him for their opinions, assuming they would match his own precisely. He said the name Bones and referred to a woman.

Harry thought that it had to be Susan Bones's aunt Amelia, one of the powers in the Ministry.

However, this Amelia Bones looked like Susan's great-grandmother, not her aunt.

Harry thought it was the stress of the day, not her normal appearance. Otherwise she was about two hundred and two years old.

"Minister, bullying twelve people into lying is not the same as discovering the truth."

"What?"

She didn't look concerned at the venomous look he shot her.

"It's clear enough it wasn't a legitimate artifact. It shouldn't have broken from a stiff breeze or someone dropping it from height. It should have been able to support a giant standing on it. So the Ministry is in default..."

"Now, Madam Bones...," the Minister threatened.

"Shut up, you fool. You want the real penalties activated in the contract? Have you read it?"

"What penalties?"

"Two massive undertakings in England this year and you start by not reading the contracts."

"Enough acid, just explain what you mean." And it had better be good, he left unstated.

"If you keep claiming that the Ministry upheld its end, the schools will appeal to the magic of the contract. This Goblet might have been a fraud, but the contract was written on contract paper and signed with contract quills. Fudge signed it..."

"His soul is gone, but his body and magic are intact. It's his problem."

"He signed it as Minister of Magic. It's now your problem. You're bound, by your magic..."

"Well." He went greener but his face also went more slack and calculating. "The Ministry admits our fault. We will pay the fines. But our role is concluded, then. We're not paying to import dragons. We're not supplying Aurors to police the events. Nothing."

"Fine. We'll take the ten thousand galleon fine and hire guards from Gringotts," Headmistress McGonagall said, smiling.

"Goblins! No. I refuse."

"You have what role in this?"

"I am..."

"You can hire off-duty Aurors. I'd support that," Madam Bones said. "Stop speaking for resources you don't have, Minister."

Her cool regard for the man had dropped into freezing territory.

The fat man considered his options, then oozed out of the room again. He apparently didn't like to lose.

"You won't face trouble over this, Amelia?" McGonagall asked.

"From the most hated Minister in a century. He might bully people who don't want to be in his presence, but he can't order anyone to actually clean his office. He's a joke."

Then they moved off together.

Harry stepped out of the shadows and entered the Great Hall. Hermione was agog with the events of the day, repeating them all, including all of the permutations of rumor, for Harry and everyone else. Harry asked some questions, just to seem that he was catching up after spending most of the day reading.

"I want a game of Quidditch to play or watch. No Quidditch is boring," Ron said.

"Brother of ours, you've finally said something we agree with," Fred said.

"Only took him ten years," George said.

"He was slow to start talking, you know," Fred said.

"Leave off," Ron said.

"As for Quidditch, we could have a pickup game on Saturdays," George said. "Maybe get some of the Puffs in. They play fair. Diggory isn't a bad one."

Ron almost started drooling.

Harry, on the other hand, had a different idea. "I went to a duel over the summer," Harry said.

"Where?" Fred asked.

"In Paris."

Fred grinned. George looked interested. Ron seemed unhappy that the talk had turned from Quidditch.

"I was pretty amazed at what I saw. We could see about learning to duel this year..."

Fred was the first one to clap onto the idea, nodding faster and faster. Eventually most of the table was nodding. Harry had just scored major points with every bloke, save Ron, who heard the idea. Even a handful of witches looked interested.

Plus it was a skill Harry actually wanted to learn. He had his adventuring skills, which were strong but fairly lethal. He did not have as many skills appropriate for a duel as he would like.

He also needed to do more thinking about that lecture Hermione asked him to do in her series. What could he tell people who wanted to adventure? Harry hadn't done much, aside from camping out in Hogwarts one summer, camping on his own land another summer, and playing errand boy in France. But he had dreams...and he was planning to make those dreams real. He supposed he could attempt to inspire rather than instruct.

The section of the Gryffindor table where Harry was sitting devolved into multiple discussions on dueling. Harry had to answer many questions. Some of the answers to which were, 'I don't know what they used, the spells were almost all silent.' 'No one used potions, but one did try some odd enchanted items.' 'They used special spells to keep the audience safe, mostly.' 'There were a few women dueling, but not enough.' 'We could get a teacher to help or we could try doing it ourselves, underground.'

With that last point, the Weasleys were sold, but Hermione was bordering on outrage. Harry just smiled.

He noticed that the Head Table was fairly empty even as they were eating the 'feast.' Harry suspected that the fate of the Triwizard Tournament was being settled over a very hasty negotiation.

An hour after the food was put on the tables, the Head Table filled with teachers. The Headmistress used the Gong Spell to catch the attention of the room.

"I suppose you have all heard about the chaos of the day. Let me summarize for those who have not heard. The 'Goblet of Fire' that was lit last night was a forgery. It has since been destroyed. We will be continuing the Triwizard Tournament, but under different rules..."

McGonagall waited for the murmuring to cease.

"Only those of age may participate, that has not changed. We will be naming the champions tonight, as well. We collected the entry slips, but there were some disparities among them. So, any of-age witch or wizard who wishes to participate in the three difficult challenges of the Triwizard Tournament, please stand in front of the Head Table. Hogwarts students in front of me, please."

The other school heads had remained standing. All of the Durmstrang students stood in front of their headmaster. All of the Beauxbatons students stood in front of theirs. Nine Hogwarts students, including two from Gryffindor, stood in front of McGonagall.

"Each Headmaster has his or her own method. In a few moments, we will reveal the names of our champions."

She walked down to the students and seemed to have each one pull something out of a bowl. She asked the students to reveal what they held. One hand, Cedric Diggory's, held a golden ball. McGonagall had gone for random chance.

The Durmstrang crew did nothing, so it seemed Karkaroff had already settled on his champion. Madame Maxime bid her students to draw their wands and cast some sort of spell. Harry couldn't tell any difference between the results, but their Headmistress seemed satisfied.

McGonagall returned to the Head Table. "From Durmstrang, the Champion will be..."

"Viktor Krum," Karkaroff said.

McGonagall looked at the foreign student and bid him up to the table. "From Beauxbatons, the Champion will be..."

"Fleur Delacour," Madame Maxime said.

The victorious student began moving as soon as her name was in the air.

"From Hogwarts, the Champion will be Cedric Diggory."

He already knew that so he was the least surprised of the three.

"Now, we have settled on a new procedure for the Tournament. The dates remain as they were, but the challenges will be different. In fact, they have yet to be set. Our champions will be responsible for setting them, indirectly at least."

Harry thought the three schools were putting on a good show so far. This was much better than the lighting of the 'Goblet' last night.

"Mr. Krum, please select a stone from that bowl and tell me the number on it."

"Tvo," he said in his accented English.

"Please name a member of staff of Durmstrang to set the challenge you will all face."

Krum thought a moment, but it seemed he had no choice. "High Master Karkaroff."

"Very well." McGonagall bid Fleur and Cedric to do the same. Hogwarts would design the first challenge and Beauxbatons the third, and final, one. Cedric nominated Professor Flitwick to design it. Fleur settled on someone called Monsieur Boros.

"Now, you must each select a trainer. It may be a family member or a member of staff or a fellow student, anyone who can help you prepare for the challenge. You will be told one week in advance of each challenge something about the task. The task designers will swear to keep the secrets."

Viktor Krum nodded, then selected his father, a man named Teodor Krum. This man had also been Krum's Quidditch coach for many years.

Fleur selected Madame Maxime for her coach.

Cedric Diggory looked out at the room for a moment, turned his head toward his Head of House, then said, "Harry Potter."

Harry shook his head, unbelieving.

McGonagall was also confused. "Are you sure, Mr. Diggory?"

"Why wouldn't I get the kid who'd been cursed three ways to hell and still took down Augustus Rookwood? If you were listening, he was the one who noticed that the Goblet was fake, then informed Professor Babbling. Last year, he suffered through all of Hufflepuff pranking him without losing his gob. There's something about him."

For all Harry's work, he had still been wrangled into the Triwizard Tournament.

An hour later, after Harry set a time to speak with Cedric the next morning, Sirius laughed at Harry's inconstant luck, then offered his advice and commiseration.

X-X-X

"You actually had a duel in the Gryffindor family room? I thought that was a rumor," Cedric said.

"It was slowed down and verbalized, but it was a duel," Harry said. "I saw a few rounds of a real tournament over the summer in Paris."

"And you want to put me into a dueling club you're running..."

"We're thinking of. It hasn't started yet."

"It could be good training. Or it could be terrible. Depends who you get involved. I'm a sixth year."

Harry found that last bit irritating. Harry had a good notion he could beat Cedric in a fight, perhaps even a duel, depending on the rules set down. "Have you had good Defense teachers?" Harry asked.

Cedric shrugged.

"Have you studied it outside the classroom?"

"I did well on my OWL."

As if the OWL tested your ability to handle challenges and creatures or whatever horrors would occur in the Triwizard. "Remember, you picked me to help you. This is something we can start on even without knowing what Flitwick will design."

The nice wizard who had a hidden prickly side calmed down. "Thank Merlin I picked him. Imagine if I picked Hagrid?"

Harry stopped blinking or breathing for a few moments. That could have been very, very bad. "Or Snape."

"Right..."

They agreed to meet again the next morning. Cedric would ask around Hufflepuff for ideas. Harry said he would ask around the people he knew for suggestions.

"Should I talk to Professor Moody? He is teaching Defense," Cedric said.

Harry shrugged. The ex-Auror was still nutty.

Harry asked everyone he could think of how to help Cedric. Hermione offered to let Cedric attend any of their speakers, some of whom might touch on combat magic or other useful things. Several sixth and seventh years volunteered to join the dueling club, assuming Harry got it off the ground. Sirius, who Harry spoke with by mirror often in these early days, said he would search the libraries his family maintained and see if there were any useful and uncursed books he might find.

Luna Lovegood of all people made perhaps the most useful suggestion. "Spy on Flitwick."

"But..."

"He can't tell you what he's setting up. But you might be able to watch him or follow him. If you observe him, you don't have to wait for him to tell you."

Harry shook his head. From the mouths of third year Ravenclaws.

Harry said thanks as he trotted away to his next class. Defense was both intense and weird, as Moody had decided to cram four years of education into the one he had available.

It wasn't bad for Harry, as he knew the Trimble books in several editions extremely well. The text Moody had selected was more geared toward curses, but Harry had already touched on almost all of it.

"Books away. Ears my way. Attention or else you're going to have a bad day, kiddies. Today we're going to talk about escaping from a bad situation. Yes, I know it seems uninteresting. It'll save your life, it will. You get ambushed, you either escape or you die. A good friend of mine was ambushed in this castle not three years ago. Where is he, Headmaster Dumbledore? Dead as dead can be."

Not exactly, Harry knew. His ghost was still scheming on this plane. Except when Harry had his amulet on, which was often.

Still Harry settled in and listened with care. Ambushes were useful to perform on enemies. They were also vital to avoid, as Harry had learned last year.

X-X-X

Just because Harry was an advisor to a Champion didn't mean he was exempt from classwork. He felt the pressures of classwork weighing him down when he walked into the Runes classroom.

The professor waited for the room to fill, then she started a most unusual lecture.

"In the aftermath of finding a fake artifact, I thought we should spend this week exploring it. While forgeries are a fact of life in the enchanting world, it's rare that one becomes widely known. So, here is what the runes looked like on the known fake."

She used her wand to hold a long, tall piece of paper in the air. It was much enlarged from what Harry had seen on the 'goblet' itself.

"The runes in red are the only ones that are legitimate. They were likely there to pop one name from each of four schools into the air," she said.

"But it was for the Triwizard Tournament," Hermione said, after raising her hand.

"Yes, funny thing, isn't it."

Professor Babbling answered more questions before she handed out five pieces of parchment, which Harry knew well. They were the different schema attributed to the Goblet of Fire in different books.

"Today and next class we're going to take these five pretenders and decide if any of them could possibly be the real 'Goblet of Fire.' We'll start out in pairs before we begin a class discussion." Harry and Hermione wound up having to start with paper three.

They pulled out their books and began trying to match the symbols to runes described in their books. They had learned Elder and Younger Futhark in this class, but they were by no means the only options.

"I don't think this is real. It looks Egyptian, but it isn't," Hermione said.

Harry kept paging through his books. He was looking for a very strange symbol, too. It rather looked like a globe on the back of a rat or something.

It was frustrating, but it was also instructive. This was how some of the work of runes was done. Researching to prove something wasn't real or that it wouldn't work.

Ten minutes before the class was over, Professor Babbling stopped everyone and asked for opinions, group by group. The teams on page one said they thought they had some real runes in Elder Futhark and some fakes. Teams two and three, which included Harry and Hermione, said it all looked like gibberish. Team four thought all the runes were the same language, but they didn't know what the language was.

"It's termed Celtic C, usually," Professor Babbling said. "We'll come back to page four. Now page five?"

"We've got two Elder Futhark, three Younger Futhark, and at least one that looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics. It's a big muddle," Hannah Abbott said.

"Very good. There are some parts from each page that should actually have worked, but the only one that's a real contender for being the Goblet of Fire is page 4. Celtic C isn't something we study for OWLs or NEWTs, but we'll look at it a bit next class, as well as translate page 4."

Hermione had her hand up immediately.

"No, I'm not handing out the materials in advance. We'll do it in class. There's actually some dangerous stuff in this one. The page four I handed out is only about a third of the actual transcription. You guys got the safe stuff. Well, not safe. Just safer."

With that the class was over.

"Mr. Potter, a moment," the Professor said.

"Uh oh," Harry said. He had no idea what he'd done.

"Should I wait?" Hermione asked.

"I'll catch you up in the tower."

She nodded and left.

"Professor?" Harry asked, as he walked to the front of the room.

"When someone arranged a necessary and convenient accident for the 'Goblet of Fire,'" she said as she stared at Harry.

He hadn't been as secretive as he could have been. But he had wanted advice and somewhat expected the experts to do the right thing. In truth, as soon as he recognized a fake was being passed as an all-powerful artifact, he should have tried to destroy it. No fuss.

Harry kept his face relaxed, calm.

"Well, we picked up the entry papers," the professor said.

"Yes?" Harry asked.

"Did you enter yourself?"

Harry shook his head.

"We found a scrap with your name on it inside the Age Line."

"I didn't."

"Well, someone entered you, but had not listed Hogwarts as your school."

"So that was why the 'Goblet' was to pick one person from each of four schools?"

"Perhaps. You might have been chosen as a representative of a fourth, unnamed school."

Harry shivered. Had that happened, he might have believed everyone about how powerful the 'Goblet' was. He might have been part of the tournament on that false belief.

"Thank you for telling me."

"Good work spotting a fake, Potter. Good work cracking it in two, if I'm not mistaken."

"You aren't asking me to admit destroying someone else's property?" Harry asked, with a tiny grin.

"Off with you."

Harry left the room, but did not head directly for Gryffinor Tower. It was his turn to follow Flitwick for a while. He, Cedric, and some Hufflepuffs had set a rota.

He pulled his invisibility cloak from one of the pockets in his robe and waited for the charms professor to leave Hogwarts, which he had been doing quite a lot in his off hours. Plus, it was easier than following him all over the school.

This time Harry had picked right. Flitwick hadn't tried to get clever with the door he used.

Harry, invisible, watched Flitwick walk right out the main doors. Harry was a few hundred steps behind. The distance was useful for keeping the professor from ditching him. Flitwick had gone into the Forbidden Forest when Matthew Capis, one of Cedric's friends, had been following him.

Flitwick walked toward where the Ministry had half-built a stadium on the grounds.

He used some odd wandwork to open a hole in the ground, which he disappeared into.

Harry slowly walked to the hidden entrance Flitwick used, but couldn't see anything there.

He walked up into the stadium and found the dirt floor was now transparent. He could see the professor underneath where the floor should be. But it wasn't one large space. It was walled, partitioned, like a maze.

Harry could make out large pillars in some of the halls and at some of the junctions. Flitwick set to spelling one of them. No, he was animating it.

Harry understood. There were charmed obstacles down there. It really was an underground maze that the spectators could see from their seats.

Now Harry had something to report at this evening's training. If only his mind weren't pondering what Professor Babbling said about his name actually being in the 'Goblet' before Harry shattered it.

X-X-X

After supper, Cedric and Harry met in an unused room near the Hufflepuff dorms and also close to the kitchens.

"You can tell your friends to stop the rota," Harry said, smiling.

"Why? You give up already? He always seems to know when I'm following him."

"I managed it," Harry said. "I know where the challenge is and roughly what it will entail."

"What. You didn't know that this morning," Cedric said.

"I had a shift this afternoon. I found out."

"Well, what is it?"

"It's dark now, it's better to show you. You up by seven?"

Cedric nodded.

"Meet me in the entry hall. We'll go take a look. Brush up on your disillusionment spells. We don't want anyone else to have the same advantage."

"Devious. I almost like it."

The spell training Harry started after that revelation went well for Harry and poorly for Cedric. The poor bloke was very distracted.

The next morning, Cedric couldn't find the words to speak once he saw the translucent floor. He had a scroll of parchment in his hand and was trying to find a quill. He apparently wanted to draw what he could see.

Harry said nothing, but doubted how useful a drawing would be. He knew one of the obstacles might have an animation spell on it, but didn't have any idea what the other obstacles would be. Flitwick was a Charms master and a dueler, at least that's what the rumor mill held. He might have strayed into enchantments as well. Any or all of them could be relevant.

"He wanted us to find this. He wanted people to know," Cedric said.

"Why do you think that?" Harry asked.

"If he wanted secrecy, he would have turned the floor translucent only the morning of the task."

Harry smiled. Yes, it seemed Flitwick was trying to help Hogwarts cheat, even if he couldn't officially say a word for some time.

"Each of those rock constructs looks bigger than a mountain troll," Cedric said. "My dad has shown me some. He works with creatures at the Ministry."

"Well, now the trick is to figure out what they do – and what you need to know about them."

"How's the enchanting section of the library, I've never looked," Cedric said.

Harry shook his head. He hadn't gotten that far ahead of himself. He knew a little bit from the enchanter Hermione had had in to lecture last year. But he'd never seen a reference to anything like what was below the ground in front of them.

"There are branches in the path, you see that?" Cedric asked.

"I do now that you've pointed it out."

"So maybe there are different things you might do to those constructs. If it's a puzzle, and you answer one way, you go north. Answer another way, you go east. Something like that?"

Harry hadn't known Cedric well, just from that awful prank by the Hufflepuffs last year when he took Susan Bones to Hogsmeade. But Harry was impressed with the older student. He really did have a fine mind.

"You sound excited," Harry said.

"You know, I think I'm getting there. This seemed terribly stupid at first, but now... You've been a lot better advisor than I expected, Potter."

"Thanks, I think."

X-X-X

Harry brought Cedric to the Gryffindor family room a few nights later.

"Is this more training?" Cedric asked.

"Could be. Couldn't hurt. The newspapers will cover the tournament."

"My mother reads Rita Skeeter."

Harry didn't. He was a bit of an expert on back issues of the Prophet, from when he was looking into his family history, but he thought it barely better than a rag today. He would hold his tongue on that opinion for the duration of the talk tonight.

Hermione eyed her less-than-full audience with some unhappiness. Then she stood and waited until the chit-chat ended. "Tonight we're going to learn about the world around us from someone who helped to report it, then who edited it for the Daily Prophet for four years. Our Gryffindor alumnus is Prestwick Wood. Yes, I asked him. He is a great-uncle to our recent alumnus, Oliver Wood. Welcome Mr. Wood."

The room was considerably warmer for him given his family's recent scion in Gryffindor. The tall, thin man with a ready smile and very dark hair looked about as young as any of the seventh years in the room. Just how old was he? Or did he have his own Philosopher's Stone to keep himself looking young? (Not that that was what it did, except in the popular imagination. Harry had, after all, seen the true face of the maker of the Philosopher's Stone.)

"Good evening. I come from a long line of Gryffindors and was surprised to have my great-nephew, Oliver, ask me to speak to the current crop of Gryffindors. This seems like an excellent programme you've got going. Not least because it might help you to decide on a career when the time comes. When I was a student here, career advising didn't exist. We went into our family businesses or we joined the Ministry, end of story. So that's what I did, I joined the Ministry and found myself in what turned out to be the tail-end of the Grindelwald conflict. A spare wand, a human shield, if I'm being honest. I didn't know enough then to do more than stand there and die. But I learned, let me tell you."

Harry found himself leaning forward. Hermione had seriously underbilled this wizard.

"So when it was over, I remained in Germany for the next few years assisting in the rebuilding. I was chased out of Berlin by Russian wizards who claimed it for themselves long before the Russian muggles did almost the same thing. I stayed in the western part of the country, then I was asked to write about what was happening. I wrote for a French magazine, then an Irish newspaper, then the Prophet. I traveled around Europe observing things and writing about them."

He had a comfortable, comforting voice. Harry found Mr. Wood had a better presence that even Celestina Warbeck. He just seemed so comfortable speaking to the room.

"Then, the McKinnons, who owned the Prophet then, asked me to report from London. Three years later, I became editor. Four years after that, the McKinnons were slaughtered by Death Eaters and the newspaper was bought by the Odgen family, who must have made a considerable fortune selling their spirits. I was asked to leave so I did. In the years since, I have actually taken up something like our family trade. With a name like Wood, you'd expect us to be foresters or the like. I take trees from our family lands, mill them, and build or remodel wizarding houses."

Harry smiled. This was a person Harry really did want to know.

"When I was asked to speak, the young lady who organized the lecture suggested I focus on my time at the Prophet. Gladly. If you have questions about the other parts of my life, please do ask. I thought I would start with the most important story I covered in my time at the Prophet, namely the early years of Voldemort's rise..."

No one in the room screamed or hissed, but there was some unhappy shuffling.

Mr. Wood was smiling. "– or You-Know-Who, if we're being silly. The Taboo on his name is no longer in effect, of course."

Harry nodded. He had learned about Taboos from Professor Spurl. Voldemort had loved the things, putting a Taboo on the word Professor for those at Hogwarts, then later putting a Taboo on his own name for everyone in Britain.

Mister Wood spoke for a long time and held the audience under his spell. The struggle against You-Know-Who had been entirely winnable in those early years. But the Aurors were blood-snobs and didn't investigate attacks on muggles and muggleborns as hard as they should have. The clumsy 'Death Eaters,' a term that wasn't known until 1977, were fined at most if they were caught. Looking back, time and again, the Ministry acted like it was complicit with those masked fools, and it might well have been. The Ministry only began trying to put the problem to bed once the Death Eaters started killing purebloods, particularly Ministers of Magic and Aurors.

"Do I regret being forced out? No," he said. "Had I remained in that job, I would likely have been assassinated, as three of my successors were."

This is what they weren't being taught in History of Magic, Harry realized. It was horrifying to hear it. He could have been told by other adults, like his teachers or even Mr. Weasley, who had lived it. Not one of them volunteered to do so. The wounds hadn't healed enough, perhaps.

For Harry, this was better fuel for the fire inside him. Few others recognized how easily the world could slip back into this kind of warfare. The Flamels did. Sirius Black did, as Harry had told his godfather as much as he knew. It was likely the surviving Death Eaters knew and people like Minister Nott.

"Would I go back to the Prophet? Also no. The Prophet under the current editor, Cuffe, is barely recognizable compared to what it used to be. Rita Skeeter, the gossip columnist, isn't even the worst of it. She's got four sisters in crime, one covering the wedding and birth circuit (which she usually terms Bastard Watch as she freely makes accusations of infidelity in her column), one humorless witch who covers and eviscerates any and all magical advances, one who spreads honey and sugar syrup over the hospital and charity beat, a nasty one covering crime who has actually launched riots against three probably decent Aurors who were falsely accused of misconduct, and the worst witch of all now covers European affairs, my old beat. She hates the French. She wishes the Germans would attack the Russians, hopefully killing off both country's wizards. She has advocated for the Spanish to take over Africa, all of it."

Here, Mr. Wood finally looked frustrated and his smile was nowhere to be seen.

"They say they do it to keep their readers interested. Well, readership is down forty percent in the last twenty years. Some of that is due to deaths in the war, but not all of it. It's just not a good newspaper and the Ogdens are not good owners, not at all."

Harry pulled out a scrap of parchment and made a note. All his random ideas now went onto parchment before he forgot them. This one said, "Another crazy idea: buy Daily Prophet and make it better."

He'd probably never do it. Or if he wanted to, he'd run into trouble convincing the Ogdens to sell. But he needed to keep track of his ideas.

"Well, that's my summary of that part of my life. Questions?"

A boy named Craters, who must aspire to be the next Percy Weasley, stood and immediately began asking a question about applying to work for a newspaper.

Harry couldn't care less about the topic.

"Did Moody really use the Imperius curse on someone in your class today?" Harry asked Cedric.

"Another retired Auror, yes."

Harry had been aware of mind control magics since he was a first year and stumbled across them in his Defense text. He'd never seen them, though.

Craters then asked a multi-part follow-up.

"I heard Snape finally lost his patience with Malfoy," Cedric said.

"The blond ponce sabotaged Neville's potion. Snape finally gave him a detention. Just one. No points lost, but there are no points this year."

"It would have been nice to hear Snape say, 'ten points from Slytherin.'"

"That will never happen," Harry said.

Mr. Wood shook his head when Craters finished speaking, but tried his best to answer.

Craters didn't seem to care about the answer to his multiple questions, but did seem put out that no one awarded him house points for the quality of his question construction.

"Hold a second, Cedric." Harry stood and waited to be recognized. Mr. Wood eventually pointed at Harry.

"Mr. Wood, thank you for your talk."

"What's your name?" the speaker asked. He hadn't asked the same of Craters. Politeness mattered.

The room tittered. "Harry Potter, sir."

The man schooled his expression, but not before his eyebrows went visiting his hairline. "Yes, Mr. Potter, what did you want to know?"

"I guess we're asking multi-part questions."

Mr. Wood smiled.

"Part one, could you tell us about your experience in the Grindelwald war. I doubt we'll cover it in History of Magic."

"And part two?"

"Your current profession of building wooden structures sounded interesting. What projects have you worked on?"

Mr. Wood seemed happier with these questions. He gave a detailed and rather gruesome account of his fighting in Europe, most of it being about how he almost died or the healers almost didn't manage to fix him in time. It sounded bloody and muddy and horrible, all things Harry was trying to avoid in his own life.

Mr. Wood smiled when he turned to the second part of Harry's question. "Yes, construction used to be something done by a family. Several of the houses on our family lands were built by our family in decades and centuries past. Those skills are no longer passed on. So my little group has done a good deal of work in Hogsmeade since the end of the Death Eater war. We've built houses for a number of smaller families."

Harry thanked Mr. Wood and sat.

Mr. Wood looked at the others who had their hands raised. He pointed at Lavender Brown.

"Those Daily Prophet columnists."

"Yes?"

"You are clear about not liking them. I've never seen them smear you in their columns and I've been a regular reader for five years or better."

"Excellent question, Miss..."

"Brown. Lavender Brown."

"Unfortunately, I can only partially answer your question, the reasons will be clear in a moment. I have been attacked in print by many Prophet columnists and others."

Lavender looked curious now.

"You'll remember that I was an investigative reporter for more than two decades. I investigated my harassers and discovered many interesting things about them, including crimes they commit for personal or professional reasons. I suppose you could say I reached an agreement with them and their bosses."

Blackmail, Harry thought.

Lavender looked appalled.

"Some years back the pension which I earned when the McKinnons owned the paper had been stopped, illegally, and I managed to get it restarted and increased for me and every other retired employee. So, in a way, I'm blackmailing one or several or all of the columnists. They wouldn't write a word against me if I burned down Knockturn Alley on All Hallows' Eve."

Harry hadn't heard someone that blunt before, nor one who owned up to committing a crime.

"But they're lying about other people," Lavender said.

"Sometimes it's brave to attack your enemies. Sometimes it's brave to checkmate your enemy. Sometimes it's brave to manipulate your enemy. Sometimes it's brave to impoverish your enemy."

Headmaster Flamel had done that last one to Lucius Malfoy more than a year ago, Harry remembered.

"I'm not the only one who got the full-mud treatment, only for it to stop without comment. I would suspect a number of people have learned these secrets. The Ogdens are foolish to keep on so many compromised people, at such an extreme expense. It's what will eventually lose them their paper and, possibly, their other businesses."

It seemed like everyone in the room had a question now.

"Should you admit to a crime in front of this many witnesses?" George Weasley asked.

"If you look, you'll find that blackmail is not illegal according to the Wizengamot. Why would they criminalize their favorite tactic? Next question."

"Were the Ogdens supporters of the Dark? Is that how they got the Prophet after the previous owners were killed?" asked a sixth year Harry could not remember the name of. A pretty witch, though.

"Look at what they do, not what they say they do. Make up your own mind as to whether they are dark. As for their ownership, they bought the Prophet at a public auction. They were the only ones bidding, the only ones to show up at a quarter to midnight on a rather poorly announced evening. Strange, isn't it? By the way, the Wizengamot has no laws against slander or defamation, either. Another of their favorite tactics."

Mr. Wood took questions until there were no more students with their hands up. He nodded his head and thanked the room.

Hermione stood and thanked Mr. Wood. The half-empty room was quite generous with its applause. Those who had not attended would be kicking themselves.

Once Mr. Wood departed she made an announcement.

"We've had a few non-Gryffindors sneak in over the last year. So here is what we're going to do going forward. We're not permitting any more sneaks, _but_ a Gryffindor can bring one guest from a different house to each lecture. If you bring a guest, you have to stay and listen. If you leave, your guest has to leave. One Gryffindor to one guest. Problem solved."

Luna smiled. "I guess I'll have to get an invite for the next talk."

As if Hermione's policy would stop her otherwise.

X-X-X

Harry didn't know why he'd been dragged away from Potions for the Weighing of the Wands. Did he need to advise Cedric on something?

It was a week until the First Task and Harry was deep into helping Cedric train, while also keeping up with his schoolwork. Then there had been the little treat in the Daily Prophet this morning on page three. An unknown speaker addressing a group of Hogwarts students had alleged that the Ogden family had been complicit during the last war in killing the McKinnon family, then stealing their business from the estate.

That wasn't what Mr. Wood had said. But his name wasn't attributed to the comments at all. Still, someone had leaked the secret lectures for Gryffindors. It wouldn't be long before everyone in Hogwarts knew that was what the article had been pointing at. It was apparently a standard-issue Rita Skeeter hit piece.

Why had the Ogdens allowed it to reach print, Harry wondered. Perhaps Rita Skeeter wanted new bosses so she had decided to take them down?

Said professional gossip was present in the chamber where the Weighing would happen. Harry had to keep himself from cursing her lying quill and the hand that wielded it.

Ollivander was here, the wand seller from Diagon Alley. He was still tiny and blinking at people and making odd comments about the wands each of the people in the room possessed. If Harry never heard about Voldemort's wand again, he might be a far happier person.

Minister Nott arrived then with two Aurors and that ancient man called Mister Tofty. Harry had thought that the Ministry was completely out of the event now. But a politician was always hungry for a free lunch, wasn't he.

The actual proceedings went quickly. All three of the Champions' wands were in good order. Then Rita Skeeter descended on Harry for an interview. The woman had an aura not that dissimilar from a Dementor. He really did wonder if the Ignis Solis would have the same general effect, though he didn't give himself the leave to try it.

"Champions, if I might have your attention?" Professor Flitwick asked.

He'd interrupted Skeeter almost demanding an interview, which Harry was grateful for.

"Champions, there is one week until the First Task, so I may now discuss what will happen. There is a stadium that the Ministry was building for the previously negotiated task, one that was judged too cruel and too dangerous. I have created a basement underneath that stadium and filled it with a labyrinth. The floor between the stadium and the labyrinth is visible to the audience. I suggest all of you trundle over there and take a look."

Flitwick glanced at Harry. So he knew that Harry had followed him and likely that he had brought Cedric to take a look.

"You enter one-by-one. You start with the full fifty points for the event. You lose five points for each challenge you fail. You also lose a point for every two minutes you take to complete the task. If you fail to complete the task, you receive zero points, which will be useful for the future tasks."

Harry nudged Cedric to ask a question because Krum and Delacour certainly were. Flitwick said little more than he'd already said. Harry and Cedric had already worked out some of what Flitwick had told them. The scoring wasn't something they expected.

"I will lead any or all of you to the arena, if you care to join me now," the professor said.

Harry followed Cedric out of the room. Once they were outside the castle, Harry saw Rita Skeeter and two of Minister Nott's Aurors having an argument. Then a third Auror drew a wand and stunned her.

Harry hung back a moment to watch what was happening.

"Get the suppressors on her. She's an animagus, unregistered. That'll be a big fine and more than a few months in Azkaban," the lead Auror said to the others.

How the mighty had fallen.

Her being an unregistered animagus might have been what the Ogdens were paying to keep secret, but they had apparently changed their minds given Rita's latest story. Biting the hand that shielded her would cost her dearly.

X-X-X

The day after the Weighing of the Wands, Harry was able to run Cedric through a much more rigorous programme, now that he was 'supposed' to know what was coming.

"Flitwick's tricky," Harry said again, as Cedric complained about being tortured.

He had six Gryffindors surrounding him in the first event of the underground dueling tournament Harry had organized. It had been billed as 'Curse the Hufflepuff,' not that Cedric approved.

Harry and Hermione had written out odd things on slips of paper. Each Gryffindor had a rule to follow as they faced Cedric.

Harry had no idea if their rules were at all close to what Flitwick had chosen, but this was more designed to put pressure on Cedric (and to be fun for the Gryffindors). Make Cedric think and respond well to pressure. Quidditch was one thing, but this was facing down multiple wands that each had different crazy things going on.

Cedric was currently facing Broadus Collins, the seventh year, while the other five waited their turn. Collins had a slip of paper that told him to light small fires until Cedric got quick enough to extinguish them all. Once Cedric managed that, Collins would leave the circle, a new person in the circle would take over cursing Cedric, and someone else would step in with a new slip of paper.

Harry's challenges were meant to be tricky, because he thought Flitwick would be tricky. Harry had gone back and looked up Flitwick in old issues of the Daily Prophet, from when he was on the dueling circuit. So he had some notion of how the man thought by how he handled his dueling opponents.

Flitwick fought one entire duel, for a bet, using nothing but different water spells. He still won. He liked themes. He liked jokes. He liked to teach his opponents while he was tossing them around the dueling stage. Always with a smile, at least that had been his reputation.

Katie Bell read the slip she held. "Conjure a bucket and use six different water spells to fill it. Or I get to curse you however I like."

Cedric blanched. It seemed he didn't know six different water spells.

Harry didn't either, but he thought he could do four, including that useless one they learned as first years, Fontus.

"I just learned a horrible spell called Mud Face. It lasts twelve hours unless you know the special ending charm for it," Katie told Cedric.

Harry looked over to the other half of the participants who were working on actual duels. He'd copied out a simplified set of dueling rules from the library and was putting together different pairs to give it a try. Silent spells were good, as was transfiguration. Cutting, piercing, or exploding spells were out. They did not want Madam Pomfrey involved.

Cedric screamed when Katie Bell doused him with a strong Aguamenti. Apparently Cedric didn't like being wet. It was better than being cursed with a Mud Face.

For the more bookish, Harry had brought copies of some interesting sounding duels from the coverage in the Daily Prophet. Hermione, of course, was looking those over before attempting anything herself. He did wish he could find a way to see a recording of some duels. It would be years before he could make his own pensieve, and the ones he thought he'd found in Godric's Hall were still there – and couldn't be shipped by owl. Too much weight. Otherwise, he'd let folks look at his memories from the Paris duels.

Ron had come, but he hadn't volunteered to pair up yet. He seemed to be chatting with Loren McGann, one of the fifth years, who was also a Quidditch nut. Harry shook his head. By the way they were moving their hands and simulating steep dives, they must still be talking about Krum. Ron had seen him flying on the pitch the other day. Harry amended his view on the type of magic Ron had: either comfortable around family or Quidditch.

Harry got another pair started with a practice duel, then walked back to see how Cedric was faring. He was unhappy, frustrated, wet, a bit singed, and jumpy.

Good. He needed to be ready for anything. He needed to keep calm. He needed to be quick.

Harry brought the torture session to an end.

"That was awful," Cedric said.

"It's probably easier than what Flitwick thought up. Remind me to show you what I got on him when he was dueling."

"You found that?"

"The Prophet used to cover dueling tournaments."

"Right. What did Flitwick specialize in?"

"Creative and nasty. Dry yourself off, then I'd like you to duel."

"Who?"

"The Weasley twins, at the same time."

"Harry."

"Calmness under pressure, Cedric. We can only simulate it here. It'll be worse in the arena. You'll know people are watching. You'll know you're losing a point every two minutes. You'll want to rush and make mistakes."

"Fine. Bring them on."

Harry stayed to watch. Dueling the Weasley twins, who were as novice as anyone else in the room, was still like hell on Earth, not because they were master duelers, but because they worked preternaturally well. Like they had four hands controlled by one brain.

Cedric was older and more serious about his studies, but he was still getting trampled. Still, he got up after every defeat and tried again.

"Harry, I never even thought to review old newspapers," Hermione said after she'd read about a few dozen duels. She was grinning, like she'd been given the keys to a whole new library.

"Old numbers of the Prophet weren't all that interesting," Harry said.

"I might find something good in them."

Harry nodded.

There was one thing Harry had noticed in his latest run through the papers. Old newspapers had been filled with photos of charity events. The new issues, like today's, were empty of photographs of the wealthy families. No Malfoys, no Carrows, no Flints. The Notts were represented only by the 'cursed' Minister. Harry supposed many of them now had severe lightning burns from when he had counter-attacked the Death Eaters at the Quidditch World Cup. They couldn't afford to show off their wounds.

Harry wandered back to the either side of the room. He helped Hermione find a partner to duel, then watched the others wrapping up. Neville finished his first duel against Seamus and seemed pleased, although he had lost.

"It's a good start," Harry said.

"It was fun." Neville grinned.

"You're doing really well."

"I wish I had been like this when I first came to Hogwarts. I was all doubts and stuttering."

Harry shrugged, though Neville wasn't wrong.

"My Gran kept filling my head with horrible notions. My parents, well, they aren't able to take care of me, but Gran's not very good at it either. Then I had a mess in my head. Someone screwed up my memory, if you can believe it. Professor Flamel, last year, on the train, fixed it. Right after the Dementor tried to...attack me, I suppose."

"But you're doing well this year."

"I am, I just feel like I lost a couple of years. I'm rushing to catch up."

"Good on you. You want to try another duel? I think Creevey finished up."

"Thanks, Harry." And off Neville went.

Harry wandered back over to where Cedric leaned against the wall, thoroughly defeated again.

"Thanks, Fred and George. I'll scrape him off the wall. We're almost out of time."

"Good fun, Harry," George said.

He and Fred then went and forced Ron to duel them. It was a slaughter, but that didn't stop Harry from laughing when Ron wound up with bunny ears and beater bats for hands.

"Next time, I'm bringing a few Hufflepuffs," Cedric said, finally catching his breath.

"Fine with me. It's all good training, I hope. If we get enough experienced people, I might be able to duel, too, rather than keep the room running."

"Thanks, Harry."

"After this, we'll need to start spying on the Durmstrang contingent. One of them is making the second task."

"Let me just get through the first one."

X-X-X

Hagrid acted like he had broken into Honeyduke's and eaten every confection and bit of chocolate they had in their Sweet Shoppe. He couldn't stop jabbering and blabbering and dancing from leg to leg.

There were three dragons in the Forbidden Forest.

Harry abandoned his lunch and headed outside at once.

Of course, Hagrid knew his business. He wasn't exaggerating. There were three large, female dragons with unhatched eggs now residing in massive cages inside the Forbidden Forest.

The Ministry had ordered them. The original tournament fell apart. The Ministry canceled the order. The dragons, with their handlers, showed up anyways.

Talk about a kick in the head from Old Lady Luck.

Harry put on the Invisibility Cloak he carried everywhere and watched the onslaught of folks from Hogwarts. The Headmistress arrived, then the staff, then the staff from the other schools. Cedric and the other Champions turned up.

Then the Ministry arrived. Nott and Tofty and some Aurors. Harry stuck around to hear the screaming from McGonagall. Nott screamed himself past his usual unhealthy green into a state of purpleness as he screamed at the head of the dragon handlers.

Finally Professor Flitwick, the man designing the first task, arrived and blinked a few times at the unwanted ingredients for the task he was putting together.

Nott put his stake in the ground. "We can't send them back until the task is over. You have to use them somehow. According to the contract my late predecessor signed, the Champions have to interact with them somehow."

"Or what?" McGonagall demanded.

"It's bad enough we have to pay for them to be here. We're not paying the penalties for sending them away early. Just use them."

Harry shook his head, then returned to the castle. None of his planning for Cedric had included the possibility of dragons. So Harry made his way to the library and its rather thin section on dragons. Cedric turned up an hour later. They didn't leave until Madam Pince threw them out that evening.

X-X-X

It was the morning of the First Task and Professor Flitwick was grinning, even though everyone was standing in front of that clearing with the three terrifying dragons.

"So, Champions, we do have to make use of these dragons. You will step into the clearing where these dragons are, stand before them for five minutes, then select a token off the table. The token will tell you what order you will enter the arena task. For facing the dragons, you will enter alphabetically, by last name. So Delacour, Diggory, then Krum."

Professor Flitwick was a genius when it came to magic, but he might have been even cleverer when it came to reading and subverting magical contracts. He had read the same thing that Minister Nott had and come to a very different conclusion. No fighting required.

Cedric was visibly calmer. Harry, as Cedric's advisor, stayed close by and could hear the unhappy dragons. He could see the gouts of flame. One created rather intense balls of fire, likely a Chinese Fireball. Beautiful and terrifying.

The Champions were very unhappy, even facing dragons that were in cages. Delacour trembled when she went into the clearing alone. She returned with a token and said, "Two."

Cedric went in and returned with the "One."

Krum still had to enter and face the dragons so everyone could be relieved of their obligations. Of course Krum returned with "Three."

After, Professor Flitwick escorted the Champions, their advisors, and the task judges (including Mister Tofty who kept insisting he was a judge). Once inside the arena, Professor Flitwick escorted the Champions and their advisors into a small booth.

Harry had to sit next to the French champion's advisor, which was an unpleasant experience. The man was apparently terrified by water, soap, or hygiene spells and he also consumed a rather alarming amount of half-rotten cheese.

Cedric could barely sit still for the introduction of the event, done by Professor McGonagall. When it was time, Professor Flitwick appeared outside the enclosure, summoned Cedric, then opened a special door none of them had noticed. All Harry could see were stairs leading underground.

"Good luck," Harry said.

Cedric tried to smile but couldn't. He descended under the arena and Flitwick shut the door and locked it. Harry stood and looked over to the arena floor.

Cedric was moving, then he stopped in front of one of the constructs Flitwick had made.

Cedric had his wand out and was casting. A water spell. He was filling a deep bucket.

A part of the labyrinth seemed to open and light up. Cedric ran toward it. Then he stopped and his wand flashed with orange and red spells. He was fighting something with a deadly ferocity.

Harry looked harder. Cedric was trapped in some mist, a confusion mist or something. He was wasting his magic on nothing. Harry had told him that Professor Flitwick was a clever sort.

Cedric freed himself from that corridor eventually and made it past two more constructs, one lobbing stones at him to test his agility and another that animated ropes to bind him and stop him completely.

The next small cavern was suddenly filled with gold, moving in the air around Cedric. Like tiny golden snitches. Or, rather, tiny golden keys with little wings.

Cedric caught several keys, then got one and slammed it into some kind of lock. All the other keys retreated.

A hole opened in the arena floor.

If Cedric could get out of that basement, he had completed the challenge. Cedric transfigured a stone into some kind of cloth. He levitated the cloth, and himself, out of the pit.

The arena burst into cheers.

There was a sign that appeared on the back wall and gave Cedric's name. It announced his time as five minutes forty-two seconds. It awarded him 38 points. Harry figured two mistakes, at five points each, and two points lost for time. If Cedric had been a few seconds later, he'd have lost another point.

His performance in that mist had to be a mistake, but what was the other?

Delacour went next. When she got to the first construct, she didn't cast water spells. She had to light something on fire. So the constructs varied their instructions. The competitors who went later in the competition may not have more of an advantage.

Harry settled Cedric into a seat so he could watch or not watch as he wished.

"That damned mist," Cedric said.

"You did well," Harry said.

"I couldn't think in there to start with. Narrow walls, ceiling about on top of my head. Damned Flitwick is so short it must have seemed a generous height."

"Then that mist?"

Cedric watched Fleur enter that insane mist. She flailed about, too. Her spells were causing damage to herself and her clothing. Harry said nothing, but the whole exercise seemed one of stupidity and rage, as if her elemental core was nothing more than anger and thrashing.

By the time she exited the mist, she was barely clothed and she was definitely bleeding from accidental, but self-inflicted wounds.

"What does that mist make you feel?" Harry asked.

"Rage, paranoia, fear, being under attack. It was awful."

Seven minutes, three seconds later Fleur Delacour emerged from the task. She had transfigured herself a new robe at some point. She earned thirty-two points.

A few minutes later, Flitwick sent Krum down the stairs and Harry again stood to watch what would happen.

Krum pulled something from a pocket and unshrank it. A broom, a damned fast one to Harry's eye.

"I don't think that was in the rules," Cedric said. "The Champion, their school uniform, and one wand."

Krum mounted the broom and kicked off.

The constructs decided a broom wasn't in the rules. The constructs attacked him. Krum zoomed through the first two chambers of the course.

Then various entry paths sealed. Krum pulled his wand and used a bludgeoning hex.

The corridor he was in erupted in sharp stone shards. Krum, bleeding now, retraced his steps. The corridors, all of the ones Harry could see, began filling with smoke. Or mist.

Krum grabbed at his eyes. They stung or he was blind.

Then he clutched at his throat. He was choking.

Krum took off on his broom as fast as it would go and crashed a few seconds later. His body lay on the ground in a heap and his arms at least looked broken.

It was the most foolish thing Harry had ever seen, foolish and horrible.

Krum's coach, his father, was up and screaming. Not for help, but in anger at his son. What a father.

Then the rest of the crowd began screaming. The sky darkened and three dragons descended on the arena. One dropped a huge acromantula into the middle of the arena.

The arena was filled with the sounds of apparition. It had been built far away from Hogwarts so those wards didn't cover this spot of land.

Harry took in the dragons. They were all far larger than what the Ministry had rented for the old-style tournament.

Harry looked around the little booth he was in. Cedric was gone. Krum's father and the French advisor were gone. Only Harry remained in this booth.

Outside, the younger students were still in the stands. Harry used a sonorous on himself. "Students, move slowly and quietly to the exits. Dragons are attracted by movement."

And sound. He had the largest of the three dragons – no, four now, another had turned up with a monstrous acromantula of his own – staring at Harry.

 _My forest filled with strange dragons_ , the wind seemed to say. _This is my home. My nest._

Harry remembered sounds like this before, from his first year, from a dragon that Hagrid had called Norbert, but who was actually named Bobminth. She, not a he, had returned to her 'home.' She hadn't stayed in the forest because of the other dragons already there.

She was a massive beast, gone wholly feral, even to the point where she returned to her 'home' to nest and raise her young.

Bobminth had to twist and coil her body to fit it on the massive arena floor, where she proceeded to gorge on a screaming acromantula. She was like pouring an entire castle into a very large home. It wasn't going to be an easy fit.

Harry had seen enough. He needed to go, too. He had apparated before when he was a child, but he didn't know how to do it now. He didn't have his broom on him. He couldn't make a portkey.

All that stood between Harry and his survival were one enormous nesting dragon and her three just-slightly smaller companions. He could also see Krum still in the challenge basement, broken, wounded, and unable to help himself. Abandoned by even his own father.

Harry could levitate himself out of the arena...

Or he could try to rescue the students in the stands who were too scared to move. Then, help Krum who was too damaged to do anything other than bleed.

Harry had done so much to keep himself out of the First Task, but he was steeling himself to do the hardest possible version of it, one with four dragons and upset obstacles and small fellow-students in dire need of help.

He wondered how would he ever live with himself if he abandoned them all? But, how would he ever manage to save all those who needed saving, including himself? The choice was impossible.


	6. Year Four: The Power He Knew Not

X-X-X

Year Four: The Power He Knew Not

X-X-X

A/N: My apologies on my recent posting schedule. I was dealing with, and hopefully fixing, some health issues.

To answer some comments/reviews: The feral dragons, including Bobminth, aren't cooperating with the acromantula. They're dining on the acromantula. The dragons aren't being controlled by anything except their mating and nesting instincts. There will be the slightest touch of romance only in the epilogue.

X-X-X

Once Harry decided something, he just got moving. He could save himself now, but Harry chose otherwise, he chose the hard path. He wasn't leaving the arena by himself. He was taking everyone with him.

How hard that would be, it was up to the dragons to decide.

Harry would start evacuating the children in the stadium, the ones who were frozen from terror. He wouldn't just leave them.

Moving around inside the arena would also allow him to see how the dragons would react. Right now they were eating and making noises to each other. They weren't destroying the arena. It was more like they were sizing the place up as a home.

He levitated himself out of the little box that the champions and trainers had sat in.

Harry moved quietly to a tiny girl in Hufflepuff colors. "What's your name?" he asked.

She said nothing, just stared ahead at one or all of the dragons.

Harry took her hand. She allowed that. Then he got her up and moving. She couldn't speak, but she could move. He led her up the stairs to the top of the arena. Outside there were adults milling around, he waved a 'brave' one over, a parent of someone. The adult grabbed the little Hufflepuff and skittered back down the stairs.

Harry decided to collect a few of the stranded at a time if he could to speed this up. The dragons hadn't done anything. But Harry did not forget the word _yet_.

As he walked down the stairs, Bobminth, the largest of the dragons, roared. To Harry it sounded like _my home, leave my home to me and my hatchlings_.

"I am just getting everyone out of here," Harry said.

The she-dragon seemed to stare at Harry, then she started to ignore him. The other dragons kept staring at Harry a bit longer, but they ignored him as well.

Could dragons hear people?

Harry had thought so when he was a first-year. He'd talked to Bobminth about maps and where other dragons were supposed to live. This all was proof she'd found them. But how was she free now?

Later...

That question was trouble for a different day.

Harry collected a Slytherin third year who had been trampled in the exodus. He got a second-year Ravenclaw to help him get the hurt boy up the stairs.

Now that Harry showed he could move safely around the stadium, showed that the dragons would ignore him, a few of the stranded children, some younger than Hogwarts age, had also gone to the exits on their own. Harry had shown them that they didn't need to listen to their fears.

But there were still some frozen in their seats.

Harry counted seventeen more. He was doing this on his own, but where the others? Where were the adults?

Why did he ask? He already knew that all the adults were still gathered outside the stadium. A little help? But none came.

He could collect as many as three at a time. He had to talk quietly, but firmly. He usually had to help the student to stand and lead them up the stairs. Their brains had just gone on short, very dangerous vacations.

It felt like it took hours with the occasional dragon staring at him and ignoring him as a too-small snack.

He cleared the stadium of everyone too injured or too terrified to escape, and five of them were definitely younger than Hogwarts age. Where were their parents or guardians?

There was still one problem, the hardest one of all.

An injured Krum underneath four dragons, but visible to them through a transparent barrier. Flitwick had been all too clever doing what he had done.

Harry made his way back to the champion's box. The door down to the labyrinth was just inside the box. However, it was also sealed since Krum went in.

Harry wouldn't directly defeat whatever careful spellwork Flitwick had done. He could just blast his way in. But the challenges inside might take that poorly. No, they definitely would take it poorly.

Harry got up close to the door. He decided he wouldn't try using any charms against it, but he might be able to transfigure part of it. There, the hinge pins. They were small, metal, easy to affect.

While his current beauty of a Transfiguration professor wasn't such a good teacher, McGonagall, the current Headmistress, had taught this bit of spellwork when Harry was a second year. A softly spoken spell and a bit of a wave with his wand and the metal pins holding the door to its frame were suddenly small bits of metallic sand.

It wasn't a perfect transfiguration, but Harry had just wanted one that would work.

He clattered down the stairs. It felt strange to be in this place that he had helped to train Cedric to handle. Unfortunately, while Harry had designed the training, he had devoted most of it to Cedric and did little of it himself.

Now he was running this labyrinth, too, in the hope that he might save one of Cedric's competitors, a very stupid, very famous Bulgarian.

Harry arrived at the first challenge. It had made Cedric use water spells to fill a container. Fleur had done... Harry didn't remember. He might have been talking to Cedric. Krum had ignored the challenge altogether and flew past this obstacle.

Now it seemed ready for Harry.

The column looked a lot larger from outside, looking down through the transparent floor.

Now that he was in front of it, the ceiling was closing down on him. The column was wide, not tall.

It also had a dark rune inscribed in its surface. It wasn't a rune used to denote water, though. This rune wanted fire.

So Flitwick had made his traps vary so that the contestants who went second and third didn't automatically have an advantage over the person who went first. Very fair, very clever. Though Harry didn't quite appreciate it at this point in time.

He had no idea what would happen if he used anything strong. So he cast Incendio.

A door to the left opened.

Harry started toward it.

Then he thought that Krum had flown off to the right. He wasn't trying to complete the labyrinth. He was trying to rescue someone.

He walked back in front of the column.

This time the column had a bucket and the rune requested earth.

If there was a spell for conjuring earth, Harry didn't know it. Was it a trick question?

How was he...

Then he felt stupid.

The floor was earth. He just had to get some of the floor into the bucket.

Harry quickly put some of what he'd learned in Arithmancy to use and changed up the Fontus spell to pull dirt from the floor and drop it into the bucket. He got water the first and second times he tried. The third time he got a little fountain of dirt. He tried again. Finally by the sixth attempt he had a decent fountain of dirt and clods and pebbles.

As soon as the bucket was filled with earth, the right-hand door opened.

Harry walked down that corridor and found his light blocked out. What?

There weren't light spells. The 'ceiling' was translucent. Had it gone dark outside.

Harry looked up.

The light wasn't out, just obscured. One of the dragons was now directly overhead. If his heart hadn't been thudding before, it was now. Exactly how strong was the charmed floor, how thick was it?

He moved through the tunnel. Then he began to smell fire and burning.

He didn't think it was from the dragons.

He thought it was from whatever Krum had done down here.

There was a magical mist down here, Harry remembered. At least Cedric had fought it and come out the worse for it. Harry slowed down, even though every part of him wanted to rush.

He could see the mist emerging from vents in the side of the narrow space. He held his breath and continued forward.

He felt the effects even though he didn't breathe in the mist. Just contact with his skin was enough. But he knew the mist was acting on him. His heart was racing. He could hear noises. He could feel someone watching him, stalking.

None of it was real, but it felt completely real. Harry knew he had to get to Krum.

Finally he mist receded. Harry used a water spell on his face and exposed hands. He wanted that vile stuff gone for good.

So he wasn't feeling charitable when he finally came across a broken broom, then Viktor Krum in the next passage.

Harry didn't recognize the Bulgarian Quidditch player. The older student was so injured he didn't even look human any longer. Harry knew a bit of healing magic, you couldn't be on an active cursebreaking site without picking up at least a little. He started casting on Krum.

Yup, the damage Krum had was far beyond anything Harry could manage.

He wasn't taking Krum back through the toxic mist.

He didn't have time to finish the rest of the labyrinth.

He needed to go up and out.

There were no dragons directly above where Harry was at present.

He aimed his wand at the ceiling and said, "Diviso."

The cutter went straight through.

That ceiling wasn't all that sturdy after all.

Which only increased Harry's interest in getting out of here before four dragons crushed the labyrinth with their massiveness.

He cast again and again trying to turn it into an opening.

Then Harry had to stop when a large dragon head filled the hole he'd created. If he'd had anything in his stomach, it might have come straight back up again.

This close to a adult dragon, the room felt like an oven. His heart was threatening to beat right out of him and there was no mist to blame this time. This was straight fear, top shelf quality.

The wind whispered _why are you in the ground?_

"I was helping my friend. I'm sorry."

The wind said _go, little wizard._ It was Bobminth, Harry realized.

Harry levitated him and Krum out of the hole. He arrived to the middle of the arena with four curious but not angry dragons staring at him.

 _This is mine now until my hatchlings can fly. Tell them. Keep them away or we will eat them. Hungry, always hungry._

Harry nodded. Then he walked quickly without breaking into a run. He levitated Krum who was leaking badly. It was going well until one of the dragons pushed off the arena floor into the air and flew off.

There was nothing quite so terrifying as an arena full of dragons. Unpredictable, unsurvivable, passive for now, but what might just set them off.

Harry kept an eye out for that flying dragon. Had it gone to the forest to do do something about Bobminth's hunger?

Harry levitated Krum and himself into the stands and kept on trying to fly them both up to the top of the stadium. It was definitely a skill Harry had never worked on before. As graceful as he was on a broom, he felt like a lead ball hitting gusts when flying this way.

Harry got to the top of the arena and he was spotted this time. Krum's father actually came running as did several of the Durmstrang students.

The surly man grabbed Krum and walked away. Not even a thanks? Harry knew better than to expect anything.

He sat down and tried to collect himself. In just the few moments that he was resting, he saw men in red robes, Auror robes, gathering near one of the arena stairs. Others looked like Ministry officials. Minister Nott was among them.

Nott began giving some kind of a speech. The Aurors looked even unhappier. They weren't a good lot to begin with. Some were fat. Most were fairly old. Some looked in worse shape than Professor Moody who was missing an eye, part of his face, and a leg.

The red-robed men began moving up the arena stairs.

Harry had a terrible feeling. And it wasn't terror on Bobminth's behalf.

These Aurors were walking into something they didn't understand. The dragons weren't doing anything dangerous, but as soon as spells started flying, Harry knew that would change.

The Aurors and the politicians stormed the arena. A troop of photographers and perhaps reporters went with them.

The dragons roared.

Then there were human screams.

There were spells flashing upward into the sky. There was dragon flame.

There were more screams.

Then there was just the roaring.

Nott reappeared outside the arena. Apparition? But he hadn't done it right. All the hair on his head was gone as was one of his arms.

"Get my arm back. Get my arm back before that creature eats it," he screamed. He was a distance away, but this speech he was giving did carry on the wind.

No one was listening to him because there were no other Ministry officials with him nor anyone wearing red robes.

Harry was one of the few who even noticed when the 'unlucky' Nott collapsed, perhaps from blood loss, perhaps from some other injury he had taken.

Harry made sure all the children he'd gotten out of the arena were gone or otherwise safe. Then he decided he had done something good. The rest was someone else's mistake.

He got up, stretched a bit, then slowly made his way back to Hogwarts Castle.

He wanted water. He wanted food. He wanted to sleep for three days. He supposed he would have to answer some questions. He should also get in touch with Padfoot before his godfather heard some twisted version of what had happened here.

X-X-X

Hagrid came to collect Harry about seven o'clock that night. He still needed a shower. He still needed water and food, but it seemed he had slept through dinner.

It was weird seeing Hagrid in Gryffindor Tower... Right, Gryffindor didn't have an official Head of House, but Hagrid and a few others seemed to rotate through the duties.

Harry threw on the robe he'd worn earlier then allowed Hagrid to walk him to just outside the Headmistress' office to find a bunch of adults standing there with McGonagall almost in tears.

Harry said nothing, but eventually Hagrid told McGonagall that he'd "brung 'arry."

All the eyes in the hallway were suddenly on him.

Harry wished he'd thought to notify Padfoot before he fell asleep or just after Hagrid came to collect him. Whatever this was it seemed to be important.

"Well, he's the only one here who has acted with a bit of sense or honor," an older witch said.

By the way she was looking at Harry, she apparently meant Harry. He'd rather be sleeping than made a part of this conversation.

"Yes, Potter, you did well," McGonagall said, but still sounded as miserable as she looked.

Everyone else congratulated Harry. He didn't know who any of them were – or why he had been fetched to this meeting. Get to the point, already. There was a nice comfortable bed in Gryffindor Tower and maybe a hot shower before crawling back into the bed.

Harry moved away from the main cluster of people and tried to figure out what was going on.

The conversation between these people slowly returned to its previous topics.

"After the debacle with the dragons, then the Ministry blundering, the parents have been howling all day," said the same witch who had congratulated Harry.

Harry thought about the parents who were complaining. Were these the same parents who had abandoned their children in the arena? If so, Harry had about zero use for them.

"If Albus were still alive, he'd be taking all the flames for this disaster. As he's not available, everyone else remotely involved is feeling the fire instead. I am one of the few school governors who hasn't been forced to resign since I opposed this disaster and refused to sign anything related to it."

That explained who she was and why she seemed both angry and smug.

"Anyone who signed onto the insanity that Albus started negotiating years ago, they've all been forced out. Then there's her conduct," she nodded at the Headmistress, "plus the conduct of all the school staff. It required a fourth year student to do the right thing."

The people all returned to looking at Harry. He felt like yawning, which was a bit rude, but he didn't stop himself from doing it. Maybe they'd get to the point.

"That idiot Minister is in a coma, after losing his arm and god knows what else. Splinching, at his age. I always suspected that Nott was rich but powerless," a man said.

Now Harry started paying attention. Nott was in a coma?

"Then the Prophet has one owner severely injured, one editor missing, and nine other staffers broken or dead," the man said.

Harry found this all horrible, but wondered exactly what it would mean for the country. The Prophet had once been very different, assuming its previous editor was accurate in what he'd said in the Gryffindor family room.

"The arena will probably never be usable again. The seating inside was crushed and is still on fire. On the positive side of this disaster, those dragons are still clearing out the damned spiders from the forest. Who knew there were so many?" the school governor asked.

Here Hagrid sobbed.

"As much as I hate this, we will have to let the beasts remain," the same man who commented on Minister Nott said. "We can't muster a force to repel them."

Harry agreed with the man. "She's nesting," Harry said, surprising himself that he was volunteering any information at all. "You don't want to anger a nesting female that size."

"How do you know she's nesting?" the school governor demanded of Harry.

Harry could explain that easily, but he chose not to. He didn't think it would be taken well if he admitted he could sort of hear the dragon and seem to talk to it. Or that he had helped to 'raise' it years earlier. If Hagrid recognized 'Norbert,' he hadn't said anything.

"Since I'm helping to train Cedric Diggory at his request, I did a quick review on dragons immediately after the three the Ministry arranged for actually arrived."

The school governor looked surprised at that, but she nodded for him to continue.

"I didn't know one female could have so many male attendants in the wild, but the rest of the behavior matches."

She nodded a few times, trying to look sage. "Which book would you suggest?" she asked.

Harry had looked at the section before, just not recently. He'd done it as a first year long before Bobminth had become nearly as long as an arena. "There are quite a few. I skimmed them, but they seemed to say similar things," Harry said.

"Not only honorable, but wise," she said. "Thank you, Mr. Potter, I think I will go find a few books on dragons."

Harry doubted he would find her in the Hogwarts library anytime soon. He hoped when he became an adult that he never sounded so buttery-insincere.

Harry was discovering just why people shouldn't wake him up when he really needed the sleep. He had quite a bit of snark to him, particularly bumblers and time wasters.

"So tell us what exactly happened after the dragons arrived," that man who didn't introduce himself said.

Harry looked at him. He had the look of a snob, like Draco Malfoy's father, though this man had light brown hair.

"Who are you, sir?" Harry asked, being a lot more direct than he normally ever let himself be. After going through what he did today, after watching all the adults flee, he had about zero respect for anyone just then.

"I suppose I'm next in line to head the Aurors."

Harry nodded.

"After Minister Nott heard about the dragons and decided to cement himself an excellent, powerful reputation, he took a bunch of senior paperpushers out on a job that required excellent wand skills. So I'm about as healthy and experienced as we have left in the Auror Corps."

After the newspaper was gutted, the magical police were, too? How much had changed in just one day? It was all a bit of chance and stupid reactions to a bad situation.

What was the Hogwarts motto? Don't tickle a sleeping dragon... Did all the Hogwarts grads who were hurt or killed today forget?

"But not you?" the school governor asked him.

"I was at Azkaban as the guard captain, I got recalled after all this happened. I'm called Skeinbrush, Wilton Skeinbrush."

Harry nodded at the man who definitely had the look of a schemer.

One of the women standing close to Skeinbrush again asked for Harry's story. So the focus turned back to him.

Harry had no reason not to explain what he'd seen and done. He tried to tell the story simply.

It wasn't easy to tell it, though. The school governor had questions. Skeinbrush had even more questions. His, though, weren't questions about the dragons or the dangers underneath the arena. They were questions about Harry.

The kind of details that might play well in the Daily Prophet, depending upon what kind of editor they recruited next. The kind of details a politician might sprinkle into a cozy meeting with a friend or someone he was trying to make into a friend. 'When I was talking to Harry. Oh, Harry Potter, a very nice young man, still at Hogwarts, yes. He told me all about his heroic half-hour in that arena, just him, some helpless children, and four very hungry dragons.'

Harry hadn't realized how much he'd picked up from being around crusty assholes who moonlighted as cursebreakers, with none crustier than Old Spencer... But he had. This Skeinbrush was definite trouble.

Harry had also picked up some skills in not talking about what he didn't want to talk about. He put them to good use just then.

Harry got approval from the adults.

"We shall just see if we can put a stop to all of this tournament nastiness now," the school governor said, glancing at the others in the corridor. She still hadn't given her name, not even after Harry asked about the Auror-politician's.

Harry asked if he could leave. McGonagall allowed it. No one was quite sure why they'd wanted Harry here except to prove that they had enough power to summon students while inside Hogwarts. This was stupid, these power games.

Harry had a few other things to consider. If Nott was out of it, then there would be a contest to replace him.

Harry couldn't approve of another rich useless wizard like Nott. Nor a grasper like Skeinbrush. Nor another idiot like Fudge.

Did wizards come better equipped to be intelligent and useful – or did an aging wizard always go corrupt and horrible?

Harry supposed he'd have a bit of a public bump from what happened today, as if he were a hero. Actually, Harry had rescued the children and Krum for selfish reasons as he liked being able to sleep at night. Abandoning children would not have left him feeling good or allowed him to sleep easily.

Harry barely walked into the common room before he was overwhelmed. Apparently no one realized he'd been in the tower until Hagrid had dragged him out.

Now that Harry had returned without Hagrid keeping folks at bay everyone wanted stories and answers. And no one was less subtle than Hermione.

First she hugged him. Then she shot questions at him so quickly he couldn't hear them. Then she hugged him again. Then she started counting his fingers or perhaps looking for big hunks of his body that might have been bitten off.

"I'm okay," Harry said.

Harry needed to calm Hermione down before she really became unhinged. Her questions were leaking out of her mouth faster than anyone else's.

Harry picked one of her many questions and answered it. "No, I wasn't in the hospital wing."

"What? Were you really just in your room?" she asked.

Harry nodded. "Asleep upstairs. All that stress wore me out."

"But... Dragons, Harry. Dragons. Four of them. How could you just slink up there and go to sleep? What if you were hurt? What if you were bleeding... What if..."

Hermione's mind was becoming as frizzy as her own hair.

"No, nothing happened. I didn't have to cast a spell against the dragons. They weren't really interested in me."

"What?" Hermione shrieked. Harry winced, but most of the others seemed to agree with Hermione.

"I moved slowly. I didn't make a lot of noise. I didn't try to attack them. They just ignored me mostly, though they would keep an eye on me."

"But they attacked all the Aurors..."

"Who stormed the arena with spells. They attacked the dragons first," Harry said.

"Right." She nodded. "Right," she said again, trying to convince herself.

"After what the Aurors did, the dragons didn't rampage, they didn't attack the school. They've just been getting spiders from the forest, from what I've heard."

"And fish from the North Sea," Dean said. He'd apparently been using his telescope to keep an eye on the arena.

Harry nodded. "They've settled in."

"Why?" Hermione asked.

"The big one is a female, I'm fairly sure. I'd expect egg-laying soon."

Harry kept his very good source on this to himself.

"Oh," Hermione said. "They're the most ferocious, the females."

Hermione probably had read all the books on dragons in the library. But she wasn't wrong.

"And they brought three females with new eggs into the forest for the First Task," Harry said to everyone. "Just one pregnant dragon shrunk the Aurors by a fifth, between disabling injuries and deaths."

"Madness, this whole thing is madness. I've said. Miss Bagshot said so. If Professor Dumbledore were still around..."

Then Luna walked into the common room, the Gryffindor common room, and headed for the cluster around Harry.

No one asked how a Ravenclaw managed to get into the Gryffindor common room.

"You need a shower, Harry," Luna said.

Harry laughed. "Yes, I do. I'll get one soon."

"Rather a friendly one, wasn't she?" Luna asked.

It baffled Harry a second before he realized she was talking about Bobminth.

Everyone in Gryffindor, save for Harry, looked at Luna like she was mad.

Harry just laughed again.

"Well, I'd better contact a few other people before I go back to sleep."

"Who?" Hermione asked.

"My godfather."

"Oh." She finally left it there. When she was feeling protective all her manners flew out the window. Harry didn't suppose she knew that.

Harry went and got his mirror, then he made his way to the kitchens. He needed food and water. Then he'd contact Padfoot.

For some reason after he ate Harry went outside, fairly close to the arena, before he pulled out the mirror he'd collected from his trunk.

He could hear the roars of dragons and see a few gouts of flame. There were dark shapes that took off and flew towards the forest.

Harry hoped that the centaurs had hidden themselves. They were the only other large creatures in the forest these days since the acromantula had killed off everything else.

Harry tried to figure out what he was going to say. He supposed he would have to deal with his godfather's concern and anger. As if he didn't have enough of his own.

"Padfoot," he said into the mirror.

"Harry, you're okay. I was just about to storm Hogwarts looking for answers."

"I was so tired I went to sleep. Sorry, I should have realized the news would get out."

"It was broadcast on the Wireless. You're all but a national hero again..."

"Great," Harry said.

"But you're okay?" Padfoot asked.

Harry nodded. Then had to answer the same question in many other variations for a long while. No, he hadn't broken any bones. No, nothing had been set on fire. No, he wasn't missing any limbs. And on and on.

Eventually Padfoot remembered to ask what had actually happened. So Harry told a much fuller version than he'd given McGonagall and the others.

"So you actually had to do the task yourself in order to rescue Krum?" Padfoot asked.

Harry nodded grimly. "All that work to stay out of this mess, then I threw myself right in."

"You did well. You were crazy, but you did well, Harry."

"Thanks."

"Because of the mass resignations off the Hogwarts board, I've been offered a seat on the Board of Governors," Padfoot said.

Padfoot as a responsible person? "Is that a good thing?" Harry asked.

"Some make it out to be a great honor. It just means I have to contribute a certain amount of galleons a year, then I get to rubber-stamp whatever the more senior governors think. Total bore."

"So you said no."

"I said yes."

"I'm confused," Harry said.

"That's how I know I'm doing things well."

Harry laughed, at least. He was still confused. Padfoot was certainly gifted with that set of skills.

X-X-X

The next morning, Harry let himself be bullied into going to the Infirmary. He had been told by his godfather to get an evaluation the night before, then Hermione, Ron, Neville, and several others started in this morning.

Fine. Harry surrendered.

Once there, he looked for Madam Pomfrey, but found a patient inside, Viktor Krum.

Why was he here and not aboard Durmstrang's boat?

Harry walked over to the bed. Krum was well-asleep.

It was only then that Pomfrey peered out and asked Harry what he needed.

"Can you see if everything is all right with me? I've had a lot of people worrying over what happened yesterday."

"Of course. You were in the arena."

Harry nodded.

"Take that bed over there, let me finish up a few things."

It seemed she didn't know that Harry had been alone with several dragons while rescuing Viktor. Harry didn't bother to enlighten her. Whatever checks she did should show that nothing had happened.

She came out of her office, but veered off from the bed Harry was using.

"Oh, my patient is waking. Just a moment, Potter," she said.

Harry nodded.

Madam Pomfrey performed spell after spell on Krum. She had done a minor miracle with him overnight. He looked human again. He had a visible nose. He had two straight arms, not shattered tentacle-like appendages. He could turn his head and look at things.

Madam Pomfrey left to collect some potions, she said.

Krum looked around the room.

"Zhey stuck you in here, too?" Krum asked with a thick, unused voice.

"No."

Krum didn't believe Harry.

"I didn't get into any trouble, but I was there. So I came for tests to reassure my godfather and my friends."

"Vell, at least they care."

Harry decided it was a good idea not to ask about Viktor's father or about Durmstrang's High Master.

"I'm glad you're better. When I pulled you out there yesterday...," Harry said.

"You did that?" Viktor demanded.

Harry nodded.

"No one told me. My fadder let me tink he did it. He said he carry me all the way to castle."

Harry frowned. "I did hand you to him after I got you out of the arena."

"My deepest tanks, then, Mr. Potter."

Harry just nodded.

"Anofer lie from him. I am not surprised. You tink somevone gets to be gud Quidditch player by sixteen years if he has a normal fadder?" Viktor asked.

"I hadn't considered it."

"I should haff picked anyvone else. You tink he knows, or likes, anything but flying? I could have gotten our Dueling tetcher as my coach."

Harry didn't disagree.

"I am of age in Bulgaria as of next week. I vill plan my own task next time, you can be sure."

Madam Pomfrey returned then with potions and food for Viktor and an examination for Harry. Perhaps Viktor was a better wizard than what he showed in that maze. Perhaps not.

A few minutes later, Madam Pomfrey cleared Harry and sent him on his way. However, she did state, "Next time you get into trouble, don't wait until the next day to ask for help."

Harry hadn't needed help _after_ he got out of the arena. Though he didn't say that to the Mediwitch.

He could smell the food so he moved all the quicker through the halls. He ran into Cedric near the Great Hall.

"You're all right?" Cedric asked.

"Perfect," Harry said.

"I am sorry... I just apparated away and left you there."

With feral, uncaged dragons, Harry was aware. He planned to make Cedric's future training much, much worse, not that he admitted it.

"Dad hauled me to St. Mungo's for a few hours last night. I told him nothing happened. But he must have transfigured away his ears a long time ago. He never listens to anything."

Harry had met the man and not been impressed. At least Cedric understood the man's limitations.

Harry went inside and tried to eat every bit of food in arm's reach, as if his new passion in life was overeating. However much he ate, though, he still wanted more. He hadn't done much magic the day before, but his body must have wasted a lot through all that tension.

Cedric seemed to be waiting on Harry to finish. As soon as Harry walked for the door, Cedric was right beside him. If he had wanted, he could have sat next to Harry. There wasn't a rule keeping Hufflepuffs at their own table, Harry didn't think. Maybe just a tradition.

Harry stopped for him just outside the door.

"My dad said that the Ministry was going through the contracts to see about voiding them."

Harry nodded. He had heard something similar the night before.

"Should I still train?" Cedric asked.

Harry nodded.

"You don't think they'll succeed?"

"The Goblet of Fire was a fake. The contract or contracts for the Tournament are real, on contract paper, magically binding. If they left-in a way to end the tournament, they'll find it. If they didn't..."

Cedric went very pale at the idea.

"The Curse of the Triwizard Tournament is still in force," said Harry, thinking back to that lecture on the Triwizard where horrible thing after horrible thing happened.

"You think it's really a curse?" Cedric asked.

"Look back at the history of the thing. How many contestants survived? How many spectators died? Yesterday, if it had gone differently, could have been a bloodbath. As it is, the Triwizard will probably have to add more than two dozen names to the list of those who died because of it, those Aurors and journalists and the others who went into the arena."

Though 'died after attacking feral dragons' might just be a new annotation for the history of the Triwizard.

"Right, right. So I'll keep training," Cedric said.

Harry just grinned. He felt a little evil with what he intended to subject Cedric to.

"Any time you deal with dangers like they use, things will go wrong. So it may or may not be an actual curse involved, but dragons... Nothing good can come of importing-in dragons."

"True that."

"You think Karkaroff, the second challenge designer, will want to design something substandard?" Harry asked.

"Ah, no. He might try to go even more dangerous."

"If he could."

"What would anyone let him have after the dragons went so wrong?" Cedric asked.

"He might design a magical task that's plenty dangerous even without dragons..."

Inside the Great Hall, Professor McGonagall used a gong charm to get the attention of the room.

Harry turned to see what was happening.

"Because of yesterday's events, several students are still at St. Mungo's or at home. We wish them well and hope they will rejoin us soon," she said.

"The Ministry has announced it is seeking to end the Triwizard Tournament."

Harry just nodded at that.

"However the contracts involved are long and complicated. I do not know when they will succeed or if they will succeed in ending things.

"Several individuals at the Ministry resigned over what happened. Eight of the members of the Hogwarts Board of Governors have stepped down over their support of resurrecting the Tournament. Finally, I have been demoted from Headmistress to Deputy Headmistress because of the security situation at the arena."

No one much reacted yet. She hadn't had the time, or inclination, to make much of a mark as Headmistress.

"I do not know who will be the new Headmaster. I will not, at this time, be taking up Transfiguration classes again. But I will be returning as the Head of Gryffindor House."

The few Gryffindors who came early to breakfast were very muted as they digested what the Professor has said.

Then she sat down again.

So that was why she had been crying last night, or the verge of tears. Her dream of being Headmistress was over.

"Big changes," Cedric said.

Harry didn't think so.

He was fairly sure that the Tournament would continue through the second and third tasks.

"We're still training until the thing is truly ended," Harry said.

Cedric just nodded.

X-X-X

On Friday, Harry brought Hermione out near the lake. She had stopped talking about dragons but was now jabbering on about his talk and about the other speakers.

She might not mention the dragons but she was still so shaky since they appeared. That they hadn't left yet seemed to keep her mood tense, like she was a stringed instrument and not a witch.

"So I'd be happy to listen to what...," she said.

"Hermione, I need someone good at arithmancy. I don't need to go over my talk."

"It's this coming Thursday, less than a week," she said.

"I'm ready."

"Could you tell me a little bit about it?"

"I gave you the title, about adventuring." He grinned at her.

"But..."

"Did you make the Fat Lady tell you what she was going to say? Or Nearly Headless Nick?"

"No."

"How about Mr. Weasley?"

"No."

"Or..."

"I've never had a student give a talk."

"So just because I'm close at hand I should spoil it for you..."

"Oh, you..." She tried to be angry, but she wound up smiling a little.

"Exactly. So can you help me with the arithmancy?"

She sighed. "Yes."

Since his experience underneath the arena, with that quick change to a fontus spell, Harry had been a lot more interested in his arithmancy texts, if not the class itself. He had tried out the dirt 'fontus' and it still worked. The problem was he didn't know why it worked. Since it still did what he intended, it wasn't just 'accidental magic.'

"So I had to do an emergency spell rejiggering under the arena...," he said.

"Emergency... Harry, what does that mean?" Hermione demanded.

He showed her his modification of the fontus spell.

"I suppose in my moment of need I remembered what those duelists, the Sundowns, mentioned last year. But we're not anywhere near to this in arithmancy class. It's still a bunch of divination crap. However, I thought you might have read ahead," Harry said.

"I have," Hermione said. "Show me what you did again. Did you change the spell name?"

"No." He just did the spell again. Then he did the spell to get a little fountain of water. Same spell, same wand gesture, different intention.

Hermione looked like someone had slapped her with a transfigured fish.

For now, Hermione had a new thing to try to unravel. Good because Harry had been through what arithmancy books there were in the library and he couldn't find the first thing to help him understand this.

He supposed he could have talked with the teacher, but she seemed as insightful as Snape was pleasant.

"Use the levitation charm to do the same thing, lift up a continuous fountain of dirt," she said.

Instead of asking why, Harry tried it. The first time he got some small rocks in the air. The second time he had a little pocket of fine dust hovering. By attempt six he had a small column of dirt, though it collapsed after a few seconds. He couldn't keep it continuous, not yet at least.

"None of our classes in any subject have talked about this at all, changing spells around. I guess I'll put in some time in the library. This isn't just a silly thing. If you can change a spell without changing anything about the spell's name or wand motion. This is huge. So I want to know why."

"So do I," Harry said.

"Right. You want to help?"

"I've pulled a few books from the library, but had no luck. So if you can figure out which books to search, I'll help read them."

"Later. Now I want to see how far this stretches."

Which was a good question. Harry had already done more things like this without quite realizing how weird it was.

Like his Fulmenifer. It had started, as the instructions said, as just a single branch of lightning. At the World Cup against masked Death Eaters (or wannabees), he'd summoned a multi-pronged lightning strike. The instructions had indicated it was possible to do, with practice. But he hadn't changed the spell in any way. He had just meant for it to behave differently than normal, to be stronger and bigger.

And it had.

So Hermione had Harry test whatever she could think of. She had him cast spells but intend to change their visible colors. It wasn't easy, but he could. She had him use transfiguration spells to do things they weren't supposed to. Almost all of them he could get to work. She threw out a hundred and one ideas for things they didn't have time to test, from stunning spells that worked differently to a long list of charms that might all be usable from a single base spell, like fontus or the levitation charm or the basic animation charm.

"I wonder if this is what we're really supposed to discover," she said.

"What?"

"It wasn't precision-changed through arithmantic refiguring. You didn't make a new spell. You just sort of bent an existing one."

"Yes," Harry agreed.

"How... This isn't really what the Sundowns talked about. Or maybe it was what they meant, but they were keeping the actual secret to themselves? Truly customized spells. Possibly different every time depending upon what they actually needed."

Harry still didn't know, other than that he could make spells do things they probably shouldn't have done.

"Let's try expelliarmus," she said. "I'll hold a bit of a stick and you get it away from me. But I don't want it to fly to you. Send it behind me."

So for an hour Harry had to relearn about twenty variations of expelliarmus. Whenever he got the spell to do whatever Hermione specified, she'd ask for something else.

Harry refused to try the version that knocked her away from her 'wand,' but he tried everything else. The hardest one was using expelliarmus to bury her 'wand' in the dirt. But he did get it to work.

"Certainly a good way to keep someone from attacking you," she said.

"If you're outside." Harry had been attacked outside and inside, but he'd keep practicing this variation. What else... He could make it burrow into stone, like the material of Hogwarts... No, he didn't think wood was strong enough.

He could...

Harry smiled.

"Pick it up again. I have another experiment," Harry said.

Hermione was radiant with excitement since all of this started. Yes, she really was powered by learning and curiosity. That might have been why Harry thought she was so book-loving. It was the knowledge she craved, not the covers or the pages, of course.

Harry cast his expelliarmus. The stick didn't move from Hermione's hand. She regarded the attempt as a failure.

Harry didn't.

"Try again," she demanded.

"Hold up. Humor me and try to break your stick," Harry said.

"What?"

"Just try."

She had broken this bit off a longer stick not all that long ago as their experiments were fairly rough on wood.

So it should have broken between her hands fairly easily.

But it didn't. Not at all.

"Step on it," Harry said.

So Hermione tried to use her feet to break the little stick. Nothing happened.

"What did you do?" she finally asked Harry.

"I petrified it."

"Wood into stone?" she clarified.

"Yes."

She nodded a few times. "Thanks for not doing that to my real wand."

"I sort of want to."

"What?"

"Not to yours. But to someone's. Just to see if it renders the wand, both wood and core, useless."

"Oh." Her eyes widened. "Oh! You really did disarm me, then. But it looked like it failed."

Harry nodded.

"That's brilliant," she said.

It was an experiment. It could be called brilliant because it (might) actually work. A lot of what Harry had tried in the last few hours was far less than brilliant.

"You learn in emergencies," she said. "If you don't know it, you make it up."

"True."

"Keep doing it. I've learned more hints about what magic really is in a few hours than in a year inside the castle."

Harry nodded. He had, too. He made plans to begin changing his traveling spells even further. Maybe a stunner.

Come to think of it, had he already done so with the Diviso spells he used when he was under the arena? He'd used them to cut magically hardened stone or packed dirt, also made invisible. Heavily charmed materials. But he'd broken right out.

As Hermione and Harry walked back to the castle for dinner, she jabbered away at other possibilities. Harry nodded at many of them. He needed some parchment to start a list.

He would work on most of this by himself, he decided. He would help Hermione with it, if she wanted. But otherwise he would let others come to the realization by themselves.

Yes, it was selfish. But he didn't think a lot of people would be able to get past the skepticism. If Hermione weren't such a learning machine, she might have just defaulted to quoting the books at him.

This just might be what he needed when Voldemort came for him again. Harry had been warned about him. He'd been twice murdered by him, though neither spell had seemed to actually work. He'd seen his supporters getting active again.

Now he had a method to get ready for them. Or whatever other mysteries might erupt, like four feral dragons flying down from the sky.

"I'm really interested in what I could do with an animation spell," Hermione babbled.

Harry nodded. He remembered having to make a pineapple dance, but what else could an animation charm do? Or a stunner? Or his Fulmenifer?

X-X-X

Ten days after the First Task, Harry dueled Cedric badly. Then Cedric responded at least as badly. They were both completely terrible since they were both trying to cast wordlessly.

Why?

Cedric had asked that, too. Or whined about it, more like, though he hadn't meant it. He was actually all for more training since he considered what those dragons meant and how close they were to the castle.

Harry's decision to focus on wordless casting had to do with the Second Task, scheduled for some time after the New Year, perhaps January, perhaps February, no one had actually said yet. There were several months before it happened, which meant there were several months to prepare.

It seemed that Karkaroff, the Durmstrang High Master, and the one who Krum selected to design the second challenge, had been spending a lot of time in the Black Lake. In November. Harry had finally asked around for where and when other students had seen the man, as he was infrequently at the castle.

The answer was: pacing on deck of his school's ship and diving into the lake.

Harry didn't think the dour man was diving and swimming in November for fun. It was probably something he was either evaluating or definitely using for the challenge he was working up.

A wizard underwater was a wizard who couldn't speak words or spells. Hence why Harry and Cedric were both suffering through practice in wordless casting.

Once they had that licked for at least a few vital spells, Harry planned to work on wandless casting. It wasn't impossible for Cedric to lose his wand in the murky water. Then he'd be defenseless otherwise.

Harry had already started on wandless. It was hard, very hard, but he had gotten some success with expelliarmus. He figured this spell would be the most needful one if he ever actually wound up without his wand.

Harry had decided to subject himself to a lot more of the training he was working up for Cedric. With the way his luck worked, he'd need it.

"Enough. This is killing me," Cedric said.

Harry let him pause while he continued working on a wordless banisher. He had gotten his Diviso to work wordless, but that he did in private practice time. He was actually trying to get Cedric to get his banisher wordless.

Cedric flopped over on the ground since it was fairly mild for an early December afternoon, with no snow yet.

Harry had a little target for his spell, a fallen branch from the forest, which was a lot safer with a vastly reduced acromantula population.

Suddenly a shadow passed over Harry and Cedric. A dragon-shaped shadow.

The dragons were dining at the spider buffet again.

Harry could hear the deep squealing of large creatures.

He could hear the roaring of dragons coming from the arena.

Suddenly Cedric was back on his feet, working on his wordless banisher again. Never let it be said that a Hufflepuff didn't find dragons terrifying and very, very motivating.

The dragon left the forest with a massive specimen of spider.

The roars of the dragons didn't end in the arena.

If anything, they increased. For minutes, then fifteen, then thirty. The noise didn't end.

"Do you want to see what's going on?" Harry asked.

"The Ministry trying to attack again?"

Harry hoped not. But some wizards just couldn't learn from the mistakes other people made. They had to make them for themselves.

The training session broke there and both wizards slowly made their way to the arena.

The roaring grew louder and louder, and was almost painful now.

Harry levitated himself to the top of the arena. Cedric wasn't far behind. There Harry found an inconspicuous spot. He figured out what was going on just as quickly as he could count.

For Bobminth was laying her ninth egg. The male dragons were flaming and roaring and trying to scare away anything that might endanger them.

Harry tugged Cedric's shirt and they both backed away very slowly and very quietly. Any poacher mad enough to take on four adult dragons... They wouldn't find his or her body or even a scrap of bone.

Harry made sure that Cedric was following him back to the school, rather than shaking or shivering with fear. Then Harry cornered the first teacher he found, Professor Babbling, and said that the female dragon was laying eggs, a lot of them.

She went pale and scurried off to make further notifications.

"I'm going to tell the Weasley twins and a few of the Gryffindor gossips. It'll keep the Danger Duo away from there and also spread the story pretty widely," Harry said.

"I can think of a few Hufflepuff gossips. I'll pass the word."

"More training after dinner? Sixth floor?"

"I think I'll need it," Cedric said. "Karkaroff seems the kind to try to leave his mark. I can't imagine what he'll try to design that's worse than four dragons defending nine eggs."

X-X-X

The next day the school announced a Yule Ball. It pushed the word dragons out of everyone's vocabulary. For dancing was now the talk of Gryffindor Tower.

It was the talk of the Great Hall. Also the hallways, the bathrooms, the dungeons, the classrooms... Pretty much everywhere. Maybe not the lake or the forest, however.

People reacted like it was the biggest news since a dragon laid nine eggs. Harry was pretty sure the nine eggs were more important.

The only one who didn't seem to care about the ball was Hagrid who was torn between joy at the dragons and devastation at what they were doing to the acromantula population in the forest. A nice man, but very strange he was.

Harry was scratching some notes for his talk tomorrow night. He'd been thinking and rethinking how to present the information and enthusiasm he had about adventuring/traveling/being safe as a wizard in a big, big world.

He had found that the training room he used with Cedric had become more of a club room since the First Task. Gryffindors turned up if they wanted to get in some spell practice. Hermione turned up with more books to dump on Harry concerning his spell modification questions. Cedric turned up for training. Now even Luna Lovegood had settled in with her homework.

She was chattering away to the wall. "Of course the Yule Ball will end badly. Every part of the Tournament is cursed. I wonder if it will be food poisoning. Or a duel that gets out of control? Decorations that fall and hurt people? No, I'd much rather go with Daddy to the Swedish dragon reserve. Much safer."

Harry was certain that Luna was fully sane. He was also certain that her sense of humor was far removed from that of most other people at Hogwarts.

But her point about the ball being unsafe was a good thing to consider.

"So you aren't staying?" Harry asked.

Luna looked away from the wall.

"Why would I? It's sure to be a disappointment."

There was more there than she was saying, Harry suspected. "Don't tell anyone, but I think I might skip the Ball, too."

"I wouldn't tell anyone, but are you sure? You're old enough not to need someone to invite you."

So Luna did have normal teen-girl problems, like insecurity. As odd as she made herself sound, there was someone quite relatable inside her.

"I'm busy enough right now that I don't want dancing lessons, too."

Luna looked a bit unsettled, but she eventually nodded. "Well, it's time to harvest more radishes. My current earrings are starting to rot."

Harry hadn't noticed.

"You should know, Harry Potter, that it's sure to be unpleasant the day the Express runs."

Harry thought she wasn't talking about the weather. Though snow wasn't impossible this time of year.

For every bit of normal she allowed out, she was acting a lot battier this year than last. What was going on with her, Harry wondered.

"I'll keep that in mind. Have a good day, Luna."

"Oh, I won't be gone long past dinner. But I feel someone wishes to talk with you."

"Who?" Harry asked.

Luna grinned and left.

Harry went back to the notes he was making. Then he felt like he was being watched.

He looked up. Damn it. Ghost Dumbledore was back.

Harry quickly checked, he had left his spirit medallion turned off.

If Ron was about family, Hermione about learning, and Luna about sowing bafflement, then Dumbledore was about boring people into submission.

Harry folded his notes.

"Can I help you, Professor?" he asked.

"Ah, Harry, you're a popular young man. A pretty girl. I've been waiting some time to speak with you."

So Luna hadn't been wrong about that. Could she sense ghosts? She obviously had gifts of some flavor. Harry was still trying to work out what they were.

Harry decided not to turn on the medallion just yet. Perhaps he could finally get something useful out of the ghost. He hadn't gotten much in the last two or so years, but he kept hoping.

"So your Triwizard Tournament is likely to be canceled," Harry said.

"Yes, unfortunate. But one cannot predict when feral dragons will appear. They've just blamed it on the Tournament."

Surprisingly Harry agreed with the ghost. Which had to be a first.

"Why were you so insistent it happen?" Harry asked.

The ghost went solemn and tried to look very wise. Harry knew not to trust whatever it said.

He fiddled with his anti-spirit medallion. It has a setting Old Spencer had created, but that Harry had never actually used. It affected everything with a soul, so people and ghosts and everything else. It made them unable to lie when it was active.

Harry had been amazed at that, but it was actually quite easy to craft using certain rune families, though impossible to craft in others. Some cultures loved lying, some abhorred it, which was easy to tell by the magical languages they left behind.

Harry turned on the anti-lying setting.

"So what was so important about the Triwizard Tournament?" Harry asked.

"We will need friends when Voldemort returns," the ghost said.

Hadn't the ghost said something similar before? Was the anti-lying setting working right?

"And why are you sure he will be back?" Harry asked.

"He never really left. He bound his soul to this earth."

Okay, Harry had never heard any of that before. The anti-lying setting did work, but Harry had to ask the right questions to actually get the information he wanted.

"How did he bind himself so he wouldn't die?" Harry asked.

The ghost who never shared anything now shared everything. It was awful to hear about horcruxes and premeditated murder and every other horrible thing that went along with it.

"You have a horcrux in you, in your scar," the ghost concluded.

That might have been true, but Harry hadn't had his scar since he was a first year and Quirrel used a Killing Curse on Harry. On that day, Voldemort must have destroyed part of his own soul, not Harry's.

Harry chose not to share this with the ghost.

He had plenty more questions to ask now that he was sure enough of getting answers.

"How do I attack Voldemort if I come across him?" Harry asked, assuming it was obvious it would happen. His name in the fake Goblet of Fire (before Harry shattered it) was a pretty good indication.

"As long as he is a spirit, you cannot. He has to get himself a new body. Then the horcruxes have to be destroyed."

That sounded ridiculous to Harry. Let a weak enemy get strong while trying to solve some bizarre missing treasure hunt? No.

Harry began to think about the problem. Voldemort was a spirit, as Dumbledore was. Somewhat similar to Peeves.

"What sort of spells effect spirits?" Harry asked.

"Unless you are a necromancer, you have nothing strong enough to effect a spirit like Voldemort."

How did the ghost know? Was he just assuming? Was he always just so sure of himself? This was a bit maddening to be honest.

Harry could made Fulmenifer work on Peeves. It was rather disgusting, but it had an effect. Harry thought to cast it on Dumbledore, but decided against it. He really didn't want to know the result.

He shivered a bit.

There had to be a spell he could find and learn. Or perhaps there was an existing spell he could modify to work on a ghost?

He would need to think about that.

He tried to think of what else he needed to know. He should get as much out of Dumbledore as he could while he could.

"Why did Voldemort come after my parents so many years ago?" Harry asked.

If Harry had been horrified about horcruxes, he was ready to vomit because of a prophecy. Sometimes it really was better to keep a bit of ignorance.

Voldemort has been fixed on Harry since before Harry was even born, thanks to this prophecy.

Harry felt more weight on his shoulders than he ever had before. He had a lot to do, a lot to survive.

The easy bit was his talk tomorrow night, assuming anyone showed up to such a vaguely advertised program (which was sort of Harry's intention).

Then he had to get ready for Voldemort. Sometime this year, perhaps during the Third Task, Voldemort or one of his supporters would strike at Harry. That much was clear.

Harry had to be completely ready before then.

Harry released the anti-lying setting and asked another question that Dumbledore probably wouldn't want to answer. The ghost gave a waffling answer then fled through the stone wall. As per usual.

Harry really owed Old Spencer a nice gift for this reworked and upgraded anti-spirit medallion. Though Harry really didn't want to comment on such a powerful artifact in a letter. Maybe he'd visit Old Spencer and give his thanks then.

Harry looked at the simple thing. So much was stuffed into it.

Which made Harry smile.

He was worried about facing a spirit named Voldemort. This medallion was perfect for that sort of task. It could drive off the spirit, it could stun it, it could force it to speak the truth.

If Harry didn't come up with a spell in time, this medallion might just be the key to ending Voldemort. That took a touch of the fear out of things, but just a touch.

X-X-X

The next evening, the Gryffindor family room wasn't empty, but it had a lot fewer people than when a Quidditch player was advertised or Celestina Warbeck. Cedric had bowed out, but Luna was somehow present. Harry wondered who she got to invite her in. (Or maybe she was ignoring Hermione's rule about being invited by a student in Gryffindor?)

Harry took his seat. He looked up to the front. There was the easel he'd given Hermione with all of the pictures and charts on it.

The time ticked down while Harry chatted with a few people in nearby seats, most of them younger students. Very few six and seventh years were in the room. Apparently they no longer had any capacity for travel or adventure. How sad for them.

Hermione kept checking her watch, then frowning at the emptiness of the room.

Harry was fine with the lower attendance. He preferred it.

Some of his friends were here, like Neville. A few were absent. It was all the easier for Harry to speak in front of people he didn't know well.

As the official start time arrived, Hermione, per Harry's demand, locked the doors to the room. Those who noticed were certainly confused. The guest wasn't yet in the room – or so they thought.

Hermione faced the audience then. It only took a moment for the private conversations to end.

"Our speaker tonight is someone who you all know. You might not know him for his interest in travel and adventure, but for the last few years he's been conducting longer and bigger travels. I am told he is planning quite a trip this summer and some of you might be interested in it. So, our speaker tonight is a fellow Gryffindor. In fourth year, Harry Potter."

The room went super quiet. Harry Potter was always among them. He was extremely famous for many reasons, most recently for surviving four dragons when a platoon of Aurors had been dismembered or eaten. (Which was an exaggeration of what really happened.) Surprise kept them quiet for a few moments.

Soon enough, as Harry stood, there was wild applause, no one louder than Neville.

Harry got up front and gave an awkward smile, the kind he specialized in.

Harry knew that if he survived Voldemort this year, he would consider his visit to the Floating Castle as a well-deserved reward. It would mean that Voldemort was really dead or at least unable to harm anyone – and that Harry had survived and would never need to confront him again. Well worth celebrating.

He wouldn't say any of that.

"Now please don't blame Hermione for not putting my name on the poster. It was what I asked for. I wanted people who were actually interested in travel to attend, not those who just wanted to listen to me or ask me awkward questions. Since we're a small group, which is also what I wanted, perhaps everyone could come forward, fill up these seats at the front? Then I won't have to raise my voice much. Thanks. No, really, come forward, please," Harry said.

Harry waited and the group realized he was serious. Luna came right up to the empty front row. Then the rest shuffled forward.

"I will start by embarrassing Hermione a bit. She knows I'm interested in travel, so she tried to find a Gryffindor speaker to bring in on this topic. She couldn't, so she asked me instead."

He got a few laughs, but he smiled at Hermione and was forgiven.

"So, I started working on my skills for adventure as a first-year student. Some of the books in the library helped. If you want a list, ask me later. What I want to do this summer is visit the Floating Castle."

He pulled the top board off the easel. There was a picture of the Floating Castle he'd duplicated from a book.

The curious audience now got a lot more interested.

"I heard about it from Madam Spurl, who was the defense teacher two years ago. She's a cursebreaker and had helped to bring it back down to Earth. Yes, it really floated and had been floating off and on for several hundred years. Currently it moves from country to country as a sort of museum to the greatest known device built with Ancient Runes. If I go in July, it'll be in Japan, which is where it was originally brought down to earth. Then, early in August, they'll take it up again and fly it to New Zealand where it will stay for three months. I checked into the lottery to be on-board while it flew, but I was about four months late putting my name in. You have to enter a full year in advance."

He was really into his words now. He didn't feel at all uncomfortable. He hadn't even pulled out his notes and consulted them. This just felt like talking to people who might also be interested in something that he liked very much.

"This is a well-explored site. Visitors get to see it all with the help of guides. The Floating Castle isn't scheduled to return to Hogsmeade until 2003, which is quite a bit in the future. For now, I'd like to propose that those in this room who are interested plan a trip this summer either to Japan or New Zealand to see the Floating Castle."

The room erupted in applause.

Okay, so maybe it was a pretty cool idea. But until now, it had just been some strange obsession Harry had been working on, with a few hints from Padfoot here and there.

Harry waited until the room got quiet again.

"The international portkey cost varies depending upon which place we need to go. If we stay a few extra days to explore the other local site, that adds some cost. Plus food and the price of admission to the Floating Castle. All in all, it could be a very reasonable trip, for perhaps eight to ten galleons per person, assuming at least five of us go. I suppose I can talk one semi-adult into going."

Harry really had them interested then. Some exotic foreign trip was one thing. An international trip that might cost as little as ten galleons was something much more exciting.

"So, of course, if you have to talk your parents or guardians into it, it will be enormously educational." Harry grinned.

He also got a few laughs.

"I'm told the tours are timed. Each tour includes the Castle actually floating up twenty feet or so before it returns to the ground. I definitely want to experience it as a tourist, but I think it'll be awesome to see for the Ancient Runes value. So, my fellow Runes students can use that to get your parents to say yes."

Harry flipped through the easel's images that he'd duplicated out of books. The Floating Castle was massive, bigger than any castle still on earth. He had images of the different rooms. How the runes worked, at least what was left of them. It has suffered a good bit of damage over the years.

Harry then outlined the specific places they could consider. There was a wizarding village in Japan playing host through July, so the food there would be very different. But there were other things nearby to see, including options to learn some of the Japanese styles of magic. Plus volcanoes and hot springs and a supposedly haunted village that the Muggles had abandoned.

The New Zealand village which was host starting in August seemed rather like Hogsmeade, but it also had some magical attractions nearby. Harry was just sorry he hadn't inquired early enough for the lottery to transit between Japan and New Zealand, which took thirty-three hours of flying.

By the time the 'talk' ended, with Harry getting many questions about traveling rather than about himself, the trip they were planning had ballooned into seven days at least and perhaps as many as twenty people, including Luna, her father, Hermione, Neville, and quite a few others.

In the end, the group wanted to visit in July and see Japan. Harry volunteered to continue doing the organizing, but a few of the others took on side projects. Hermione was insistent that she ask Professor Babbling for information on the runes of the Floating Castle, for those who wished to study up in advance.

As Harry was collecting his images, Hermione told him he had done very well.

He just hoped he would be alive in July to take the trip with all of the others. He intended to do everything he could to make it a reality.

X-X-X

Harry's forthcoming adventure to Japan became the next big topic in Gryffindor Tower, pushing aside the Yule Ball, which had pushed aside the dragons in the arena. Priorities are such odd things.

Within five minutes of entering the tower the day after his talk, Harry knew that Ron was angry with everyone (except himself) for skipping the lecture. Then he was angry because he didn't have ten galleons to go on the trip.

Harry thought his friend would be a lot happier staying at the Burrow, not traipsing around a very foreign country. Though he had the good sense not to say so.

Several of the non-attendees tried to get themselves into the group that would be going to Japan. Harry said he would think about it.

Neville got weepy-eyed when he saw Harry out of gratitude for being included. This made Harry feel kindness toward Neville, but it also made him feel uncomfortable. Hopefully his friend wasn't becoming a Creevy-style fanboy.

Harry eventually fled the Tower and went back to the fifth floor rooms where he'd spent the summer after his first year at Hogwarts. He still hadn't brought anyone here, though a poltergeist and a ghost knew about it.

He worked on his spells, on making them respond to what he actually wanted. He conjured a glass and filled it with water. He put the glass in front of a target and used Ignis Solis on the target. The first few times the glass disappeared and the water evaporated away. He eventually made the fire spell selective. It also had the effect of making it burn hotter and faster. Since if the target took too long to burn, the water would bubble away anyway.

Harry worked on any spell he thought he could make attack or defend. He had finally gotten somewhere with animation spells. He could also cast 'non-endable' stunning spells on transfigured animals. Who knew if they would really work on a person? (Or if the modification to resist a finite incantatum would hold up against a strong enough witch or wizard.)

He kept to this pace of studying and development for the last two weeks until term ended. He had chatted with Padfoot, but Harry's godfather had no good suggestions for managing his fame.

When Harry was between classes or eating in the Great Hall, a few Ravenclaws asked for invites.

Susan Bones approached Harry at the start of Herbology and asked to invite along twenty Hufflepuffs. He tried to be polite, but by that point he almost shouted, "Organize your own trip." But he didn't say that. He kept polite.

A few days before term ended, Harry received a bit of levity. He got a letter from Old Spencer asking for more information on these dragons of his. Harry also received a packet from Madam Spurl which included four tickets to travel on the Floating Castle between Japan and New Zealand. Amazing.

Her spy network was amazing and efficient.

Those tickets, however, gave Harry a new problem.

There were twenty people, at least, interested in going. Now only three of the others (as Harry was keeping at least one of those tickets for himself) could go on a flight of the Floating Castle from Japan to New Zealand.

How should he distribute the others? A contest? A drawing? It had to be something that people would consider fair.

He'd keep the tickets a surprise until after the New Year.

X-X-X

Harry came down to breakfast early on the morning that the Hogwarts Express would run. Hermione was already down with a new stack of books. She still hadn't found references to what they had worked on that day by the lake, and what Harry had continued to develop on his own time.

Still, she pushed one of the books over to him with a finger held at a particular chapter.

He accepted the book, marked the spot, then looked at the book as a whole. _Spell Modification Considerations_. It was a promising title. Then he turned to the section she had noted for him.

It was all about using arithmancy to change, even rename, spells. This is what the Sundowns had talked about. This is what he expected spell design to be like. It just wasn't what he was experiencing in his practice.

"I'll read it," Harry said.

"Maybe you'll get a few tips. It won't be completely helpful," she said, with a tinge of unhappiness. "I got it from a second-hand store. Just bring it back in January."

"Thank you."

Harry got his breakfast arranged and started eating. He had packed the night before and had shrunk his trunk down and put it into his pocket. He intended to head for Hogsmeade right after breakfast. He was still looking for a few gifts. Padfoot, as immature as he was, was remarkably hard to shop for, namely because he just went out and bought everything he might possibly want.

Harry chatted with some of the early risers until the Deputy Headmistress used her gong charm to get the room focused on her. There was still not a Headmaster or Headmistress. Harry suspected that the remaining school governors had demoted her just to embarrass her or force her to resign. It was cruel, Harry thought, since blaming her for feral dragons was ridiculous.

"Late last night all the signatories to the Triwizard Tournament finally agreed to cancel the remainder of the tournament," McGonagall said.

She got herself a big, big cheer from that.

She pursed her lips and waited for the noise to die down.

"The Yule Ball will continue as scheduled, but both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will return home thereafter."

Many of the teachers at the Head Table looked quite startled at this.

Harry was surprised, but only because he had thought that the people trying to cancel the tournament wouldn't actually manage it. Everyone knew they were trying, but had been making poor progress.

"Also, the position of Minister of Magic has been declared vacant since Minister Nott is still comatose after his misadventure with the dragons of Hogwarts."

Harry wondered if a deal had been done to make both things happen: end the tournament and open the ministerial election. Probably it had been a package deal, the only way things got done is if everyone felt slimy afterwards.

The timing of both announcements made Harry fairly sure about that.

The Deputy Headmistress said a few more things which Harry didn't care about, then sat down again.

Harry was lost in thought about who might just become the next Minister. That slime-bucket Wilton Skeinbrush seemed likely to throw his hat in.

There had to be better people than Fudges and Notts and Skeinbrushes.

Mr. Weasley worked for the Ministry, but he had little credibility with the Wizengamot.

Celestina Warbeck was already famous...

Hold up.

There was one possible person Harry had listened to in the Gryffindor family room. Harry had been very impressed by Prestwick Wood, the former editor of the Daily Prophet.

Harry took out a scrap of parchment and began writing notes. Yes. Yes. The man had good blackmail resources. The man knew how Wizengamot worked, or didn't. He had common sense and intelligence. He wasn't evil. He might just be a good candidate.

Harry decided there and then he was going to try to draft Mr. Wood to run for Minister of Magic. He'd write a letter in Hogsmeade and send it with an owl.

X-X-X

Harry walked out of Hogsmeader's Owl Post shop when he ran into Professor Snape who had a particularly ugly scowl on his face.

"What are you doing in Hogsmeade, Potter?" Snape demanded.

"Getting on the Express?"

"You're skipping the Ball?" Snape asked, disbelieving.

Harry just nodded and moved past his professor. He looked in the joke shop for Padfoot. He, of course, also picked up some chocolate, but he was still looking for something else when he was stunned from behind.

When he woke, Harry was inside a wreck of a house, very old and falling apart.

His wand was missing. His shrunken trunk was gone from his pocket. His anti-spirit medallion was gone.

"Harry. Potter."

It was a high, screechy voice. Surprisingly Harry recognized it. Snape carried in a shrunken baby-like-creature which could and did talk.

It was also the voice the Quirrell had made before he cast a Killing Curse against Harry three years earlier.

This was Voldemort. And Snape was helping him.

He hadn't had until the Third Task. He hadn't even had until Christmas. It was time. He wasn't prepared. He wasn't ready.

He stopped his mind there. He stopped the panic mercilessly. No time. No energy for that.

He wasn't ready, but he had been getting ready. In fact, Harry had worked up several spells wandlessly. He didn't have one that could free him from these ropes, but he knew how to modify spells. So he went with a wandless vanishing spell modified just to affect rope. He didn't want to make it clear what was happening.

Try one to vanish the ropes binding him failed.

As did tries two and three.

"You took his wand?" the baby asked.

"Yes, Master." Snape glanced over at a shelf. Harry hoped all of his belongings were there.

"He's using magic somehow. I can feel it," the baby insisted.

Harry's fourth try with a wandless spell vanished the ropes holding his arms behind his back. He tried his hardest to leave them there, but the baby knew something had changed.

"Just stun him again."

Harry could also use the levitation spell wandlessly now. He had no trouble with the spell. He ripped a chunk of the wall trim and slammed it into Snape's head about seven times. Which was probably five times more than necessary.

But Harry was certainly unhappy with his treacherous teacher.

The baby grabbed Snape's wand so Harry did something he didn't know would work. He used his expelliarmus spell, the petrifying version, on the wand.

The baby cast a stupefy. Nothing happened.

It cast a crucio. Nothing happened.

Harry ran to the shelf. He grabbed his wand and medallion. He noted his shrunken trunk was there. He didn't need it yet.

The baby screamed for Nagini. Whatever that was.

Then the doorway filled with a monstrous snake.

"Ignis Solem," Harry said, pointing his wand at the serpent.

The fire was hot and scorched the floorboards but didn't set them alight. Thank Merlin for little mercies.

The baby began to scream. It threw the useless wand at Harry but it landed far short.

"I will come back again. I will always come back, Potter."

Then, Snape began to bubble and fizz. Suddenly he looked completely different and a decade younger.

Harry stunned 'Snape' again, using his variation that a finite wouldn't work on. He stunned the baby, too.

He needed time to think. He was safe, he thought. He had Voldemort and his servant in his control. He had killed Voldemort's snake. There didn't seem to be anyone else in this wreck of a building who was responding to the noise.

What should he do?

Run away? No. He wouldn't leave these two to escape and make more trouble.

Ask for help?

Yes. He almost never had the option, but he did now. He would ask for help.

He unshrunk his trunk and pulled out his mirror. "Padfoot."

Nothing.

"Padfoot," Harry said with a touch of desperation.

Nothing. Perhaps his godfather had heard of Harry's kidnapping? Perhaps he was waiting for Harry to turn up at King's Cross Station.

Harry could leave this wreck, but he couldn't drag these two along...

No, he wasn't leaving. In fact, he wanted answers from them, right now.

He was angry. He needed information. It was only a bit of his preparation, and a ton of luck, that kept him from dying before he was fifteen years old.

He put the mirror back in his trunk.

Harry checked on the baby. It was still unconscious.

Then he took out his medallion and set it to its anti-lying setting. He cast the same exact modification of a stupefy against 'Snape,' which was the only way to actually cancel the spell he used on 'Snape.' 'Snape' immediately began to wake.

Harry used a petrificus on the man, but left his head unaffected.

"Who are you?" Harry asked.

"Barty Crouch."

"Where is Professor Snape?"

"In a seven compartment trunk in his office."

"Is he alive?" Harry asked.

"He should be. I needed him alive to use Polyjuice to look like him, the traitor."

Snape was a lot of things, but a traitor? That was a question for later. "How did you replace him?" Harry asked.

"Even that arse wants things in Diagon Alley. He was easier to ambush than you were," Crouch said.

Which was no great comfort. "Why did your master want me here?" Harry asked.

"He needs a new body. For that he needs the blood of an enemy. His greatest enemy, you. But you're here several days early and the potion for the ritual isn't ready yet."

Harry shivered at the idea of his blood going into a ritual. "Who tried to put my name into the Goblet of Fire?"

"I did."

Harry wasn't exactly surprised after seeing this place and the baby that spoke like Voldemort did.

"When that Goblet broke, it all went wrong," Crouch continued. "I had to recover the plan as best I could. So I put a compulsion on the Diggory boy to select you as his mentor, even filled his head with some words of praise to speak."

Harry clamped his mouth shut so he wouldn't stop this Crouch from speaking. He doubted Cedric had a clue that he hadn't picked a mentor of his own choice.

But it gave some sense to an otherwise baffling decision.

"It went all wrong again today since the Tournament was truly canceled. I had already planned to take you during the Yule Ball, but then you left for Hogsmeade so I followed behind. You confirmed that you were leaving for the holiday. So I waited until your were relaxed and I stunned you. I'm sure I was spotted, but needs must."

Just from listening to the obsessed follower, Harry had a good sense of the overall plan. Whatever madman he was earlier, this desperate Voldemort was good at using people's plans and dreams against them, turning Dumbledore's trap baited with a Philosopher's Stone against Dumbledore, then using this restored Triwizard Tournament to fuel his own resurrection.

It was only several early warnings and a few shocks, including some from feral dragons, that kept Harry from falling helplessly into the multi-layered trap. As it was, he'd known to be wary and yet still found himself stunned and kidnapped from Hogsmeade.

He'd been careful, but nowhere near careful enough. It was only his work with spell modification, plus wandless casting, that had saved him.

He wouldn't squander his temporary success. He had to settle this now while these two were in his control.

Harry re-stunned Crouch.

He needed a plan, a good plan.

He had these two, but Voldemort had other supporters. He wouldn't feel safe in the world if he left half, or more, of this problem loose.

Harry didn't know what to do.

He couldn't reach Padfoot by mirror.

He hadn't perfected his Patronus charm, though he now knew it could be used to send messages.

He didn't trust the Aurors as they were these days, if Wilton Skeinbrush was representative of the rest.

Harry would have to talk to Voldemort while using the anti-lying setting of his medallion. Somewhere in his plan, somewhere in his mind was a way to make all of this safe again for Harry. From Voldemort, from his supporters, from his insane plans.

Harry tried his mirror again.

This time Padfoot answered and was half-insane with worry. It didn't get much better when Harry said he had his kidnapper stunned and had Voldemort captured. Then Harry asked Sirius not to inform the Aurors for now, given that some of them may actually be Voldemort supporters.

When asked where he was, Harry said he didn't know, but could find out. Harry agreed to help Padfoot get here and design whatever it was they could do to end the threat of Voldemort. Two minds would hopefully be far better than one.

Harry was both so tired and so keyed up. He thought he might puke. But he decided how to get the information he needed out of Crouch. He wanted his godfather here. Then they could figure out how to approach Voldemort.

X-X-X

A/N: I expect one more chapter and one epilogue.

X-X-X


End file.
